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My comments on South Korea apparently led to very interesting discussion that could be found at Randy MacDonald's Livejournal.

Bulajić (Bulajic) Apologises

As I have noted in my previous blog entries, if you mention the word "Croatia" on the Internet, there is some chance that you would see reaction containing word "Nazi". Those who like to associate Croatia with Nazism often use data collected by this man – Dr. Milan Bulajić (Bulajic), director of Museum of Genocide Victims in Belgrade. After writing his book Ustaški zločini genocida (Ustasha Crimes of Genocide) in 1989 Bulajić spent next thirteen years collecting data about things that went on the territories of "Independent State of Croatia" in 1941-45 and what Pavelić (Pavelic) and his quisling regime did to the "undesirables", mainly Serbs. Bulajić's efforts were well-publicised and used by Serbian propaganda machine during the war in early 1990s, in a campaign to associate Republic of Croatia with Pavelić's fascist state. Naturally, that led many Croatian historians to consider rebuke of Bulajić and his data as their patriotic duty. Their task was eased by Serbian propagandists' tendency to inflate WW2 casualties and use "million Serbs slaughtered by Ustashas" and "700 thousands Serbs slaughtered in Jasenovac death camp" myths.

(Aforementioned myths are considered to be facts by many. I was criticised by E-mail for trying to debunk this myth in Usenet newsgroup soc.history.what-if few months ago.)

Yet, all those Croatian patriots didn't seem to react when Bulajić himself made statement that could have jeopardised his credibility. According to Jerusalem Post article, re-published on History News Network website, Bulajić apologised for "creating wrong impression about Jewish inmates running Jasenovac" in his book. The controversial segments were "taken out of context" and Bulajić said that his book "clearly stated that the claims had been made by witnesses co-erced by Serb quisling government".

Interestingly enough, Croatian media didn't seem to notice this. One of the reasons might be found in late President Tudjman being slammed by world historians and Jewish leaders for making same claims in his controversial book Horrors of War. Probably the only people who could have field day with this are those who like to draw parallels between Croat and Serb nationalism. For them, this could be key evidence that revisionist minds think alike.

Worrisome News

Apparently, couple of E-mails containing Avril Lavigne virus have entered my mailbox. My copy of Norton Antivirus, despite being updated almost daily, failed to detect any kind of infection. I had to download removal tool from Symantec site and run it, but the tool reported that there aren't viruses on my PC. I didn't open any of such messages (only had them previewed), but this whole affair only reminde