Deathwatch: Franjo Tudjman, Croatian President, 77

["Deathwatch Central" <cdw@slick.org>]

http://www.cnn.com/1999/WORLD/europe/12/10/tudjman.obit/

Croatian President Tudjman dead at 77

December 10, 1999
Web posted at: 8:20 p.m. EST (0120 GMT)

ZAGREB, Croatia (CNN) -- Franjo Tudjman, president and founding father of
the independent nation of Croatia, has died in a hospital in the Croatian
capital of Zagreb where he was being treated for abdominal disorders, state
television reported Saturday. He was 77.

State television broke into regular programming at 2 a.m. (0100 GMT) to make
the announcement. It did not specify a time of death.

"The president of Croatia, the founder of the independent Croatian state,
has died," the announcement said.

Tudjman had been hospitalized since undergoing emergency intestinal surgery
on November 1. He had received medical treatment in Washington, in 1996, for
what U.S. sources said was stomach cancer. But Tudjman denied that, and his
medical team in Zagreb said he had been treated for an ulcer and swollen
lymph nodes.

Tudjman was one of the last of a generation of eastern European political
leaders who fought against Nazi Germany in World War II. Half a century
later he was part of the historic transition from communism to democracy at
the fall of the Soviet Union.

In June 1997, he won election to his third term as president of the Republic
of Croatia.

He will be remembered for keeping his promise to lead Croatia to
independence from Yugoslavia. But he also was a crafty practitioner of
old-fashioned authoritarianism in post-communist eastern Europe.

"Tudjman preferred to leave the day-to-day running of the economy to his
prime ministers but did nothing to stop nepotism, cronyism and corruption
marring what should have been an admirable economic performance," Graham N.
Green, a former Canadian Ambassador to Croatia, wrote in The Ottawa Citizen
on November 16.

Green also noted that Tudjman's human rights record led to international
censure, resulting in less economic assistance reaching the 4.7 million Croa
tian people than was offered to other nations in southeastern Europe.


Apologized to Jews

Tudjman, who held a Ph.D. in history from the University of Zagreb, wrote
often on political science and history, including a book published in 1988
in which he asserted that 900,000, not 6 million, Jews died in the
Holocaust.

He later apologized to Jews for their treatment during World War II under
the fascist government installed in Croatia by German forces. As a partisan,
he fought that government.

After becoming president of independent Croatia, Tudjman would not permit
operations of independent news media. Among various restrictions, his
government passed and enforced a law that prohibited the press from
insulting the president.

In 1960, Tudjman at age 38 became the youngest general in the Yugoslav army,
under President Josip B. Tito, but a year later he resigned to become a
historian and teacher. He also worked as writer and editor, and in the late
1980s, lectured on Croatian independence.


Criticized for extreme nationalistic beliefs

In the early 1990s, when Yugoslavia's six federated republics splintered,
Tudjman's strong nationalistic sentiments helped him win the presidency of
Croatia, one of the new, relatively small nations. Croatia's land area is
about 57,000 square kilometers (22,800 square miles), slightly smaller than
that of West Virginia.

Tudjman went too far with his nationalistic beliefs, according to some
Western critics, because he purged thousands of Croatian Serbs from
manufacturing jobs, the security forces, police and other government jobs.

The president's policies against Serbs helped fuel the bitter civil war with
Serbs living in Croatia. These Serbs, with backing from the Serb-dominated
Yugoslav army, gained territory, then lost battles.

The four-year war that cost about 250,000 lives and wracked Croatia,
particularly its industrial facilities, ended in 1995. Negotiations among
Tudjman, Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic and others at Patterson Air Force
Base in Dayton, Ohio, resulted in a peace treaty.

The next president of Croatia is not expected to have the near-dictatorial
powers Tudjman gained during the civil war, and many observers predict a
multi-party democracy will emerge.

Tudjman, married to Ankica Zumbar, was the father of three children.

Reuters contributed to this report. , "Current Biography," "Who's Who in the
World" and the CIA's "The World Factbook 1999" contributed to this report.


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