Vukovar

Enter the demon

We are in Vinkovci in a cab arranged from Osijek, from where the Habsburg world still dominated the architecture, the pulse, the very DNA of the city. The old Hungarian city of Eszék, some would argue and I would agree. Before the demons who arranged so-called World War I exploded the peaceful world of European monarchies in the name of the demon democracy, where two people can vote to slit your throat.

Oh it was not perfect, they claimed. So then they went on to murder millions and install the brutalism, the “democracy,” that continues to this day with absolute ciphers like Ursula von der Leyen, who would not have been fit to pull the burr from HRH Charles’ sandal. A woman astonishingly devoid of any sentience. Not even worthy of contempt. Merkel was a monster, but would could have imagined - at a time like this - that apres soi le deluge?

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We are in Vinkovci in a cab arranged from Osijek going to Vukovar. It is 1998. Earlier I am with Maarten in Osijek in the main square in the morning. Maarten did not like to get up early, as he, an Oxford PhD in modern history/philosophy, preferred to begin his day in the main square of Osijek barely before noon with endless cigarettes and espressos.

There was no rush, as he smoked his cigarettes with bleary red eyes and espressos. He had his notes and even in his desperate state he knew the plan for the day.

The evening before, we were dining al fresco near the Great Cathedral when suddenly a wedding party exploded from the church, flush with Croatian flags and a strong sense of national identity. Extremely Catholic, even as a political signature. Such a boy and beautiful woman. Croatia as a Catholic and nationalistic state had emerged from the ruins of Yugoslavia and if in a pure and platonic form we believe in secession it was a good thing. But of course it was all fake and contrived.

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Nationalism is a funny thing as Yugoslavia imploded, as it was a main tool of the US regime-change empire to destruct - and deconstruct - a multi-cultural, multi-confessional entity in the heart of Europe that could have posed a huge challenge to US/NATO plans to subjugate the former Soviet-sympathetic world into the new US satellite world.

The plan for the US to become the new USSR.

There was no NATO-expansion with a pan-slav identity. Hundreds of millions of well-placed dollars solved that. Whores for Moscow happily became whores for DC. Easy money. The worst communists became the best “democrats” because the systems were identical: fund the elites and suppress any opposition. The whores or their protegees still govern Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, etc.

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Ironically the multi-confessional Yugoslavia was held together by the strength of one of history’s unsung geniuses - Tito - (regardless of whether he was a force for good or evil), who somehow was able to carve out of nothing a sense of South Slav identity that was neither Soviet nor Langley. A convenient thorn in then-Moscow’s side…

Divide and conquer was not invented by President Clinton and his murderous neocons. Yet what could have been a normal “secession” according to confessional and even political lines, with an eye to cooperation heeding regional realities, was coaxed by the Strobe Talbot monsters of the day to benefit from the carpet bombing - metaphorically and physically - of the last pan-slav entity.

[Arab unity had long been blown up in service of the US empire - and, ahem - BTW]

Again back to normal secession, which is healthy. The Serbs and Croats could have had their bitch-fit and realized that as much as they hate each other they can still be trading partners. But Langley had other plans: impoverish them all and kill the best of them. Yeah they were so dumb, but no dumber than the highest “educated” American who watches any of the television or cable networks.

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So Maarten and I remained in the restaurant in the town square until the unholy hours of the morning, the night before we were to monitor the elections. There was never an end to the ability to ask for just one more Osječka pivo, from a brewery founded in 1657. Maarten suggested at an hour beyond any rational contemplation that we have a final glass of beer. He was on about Bach and Beethoven. Post-modernism and fin du monde. I was outclassed and deadly tired. He was an actual intellectual and I was a ... Such were the angels of the British Helsinki Group. What does it all mean? Why are we here, the Group, challenging all of the conventional “wisdom” of the day? We are being brutally hammered because, ironically, as the only non-government funded Helsinki Group we dare to challenge the other governments who fund the other Helsinki groups who scream at us, “anathema!”

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“Why are you driving at 140 KmPH,” I asked our taxi driver.

“Because my license plate is Vinkovici and if we are going to Vukovar there will be snipers positioned all along the road ready to shoot us. We are enemies in Vukovar.”

If we drive less than 140KmPH we will be shot. Look at the bullet holes already in my car.”

There are also a lot of mines.”

“OK, drive on.”

So Maartin and I decamped at a church near Vukovar, where there was a rare joint Serb-Croat guard deployed. On the road near the church, which we only surmised, I stepped off the paved path for the call of nature.

We reached the small church jointly guarded by a young Serb and a young Croat. Both were at war but both had the same military obligation. As it stands they both agreed, after a bizarre argument about whether it was indeed election day, to show us around.

It was like an awkward family reunion when the wife or husband had obviously been given a black eye. The water tower, which you can see above, had been shelled. We climbed to the top while the Croat explained Serb shelling. The Serb was silent. Either could have killed the other - or us, who were annoyances - with impunity,

As we walked with the competing border guards past the area where a half hour before I had relieved myself, just off the path, they both agreed: “At this point do not go off the path because everything is mined. Someone died just days ago from stepping off the trail.”

It was exactly where I had gone off the trail. Later four children came from that which should have been disintegrated by a mine…

We looked down in the basement of the Church. There was a room filled to the top with discarded clothes. When we looked closer each of them had a bullet hole in the back. Including children clothes.

Vukovar was a Habsburg city destroyed by communism and post-communism. Maybe the solution is to reject the demonic lie of the Whig theory of history. We are NOT on a continuum toward perfection, but are continuously being confronted by the serpent from the Garden of Eden.

Secret world, secret tunnel, why should I subscribe or listen to you? Because a mine, an espresso, a Catholic cathedral, Habsburg architecture, a Croatian tour guide, a Serb. Unlike anyone else I have no answers. I only have monarchical boots on the ground of places like Vukovar. There is a secret world that you will never hear about. This is it.