----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, May 13, 2000 8:37 PM Subject: [STOPNATO] Late Yugoslav ruler Tito enjoys comeback STOP NATO: NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.COM By Zoran Radosavljevic ZAGREB, Croatia (Reuters) - Twenty years after his death, Yugoslavia's Communist ruler Marshal Josip Broz Tito is enjoying a public comeback. The flamboyant, often controversial leader who ruled the multi-ethnic federation from the end of World War II until 1980 is the subject of a new film called ''The Marshal.'' Young director Vinko Bresan's surreal film poses the question: What would happen if Tito came back from the dead to his native Croatia, where a few of his die-hard followers, aging Communists and anti-fascists, now live? The film is making many in Croatia, now an independent nation, look again at the historic role of the wartime partisan leader turned world statesman. Croatia marked Tito's death this year for the first time since gaining independence in 1991. Several thousand people gathered on May 4 in Kumrovec, his birthplace in northern Croatia, where sirens wailed at 3:05 p.m., the exact time of his death. The mourners, mostly elderly, laid flowers and sang patriotic songs. Many filed through the wooden cottage where Tito was born. A pub called ''The Old Man'' recently opened in Kumrovec and local leaders have restored the entire village in the hope of reviving once-thriving tourism. Tito's Yugoslav federation outlived him by 10 years before it crumbled amid rising nationalism in its six constituent republics and the end of communism. TITO MOVIES CROSS HOSTILE BORDERS ''The Marshal'' had its premiere in Belgrade, capital of the rump Yugoslavia, on April 15 and Bresan received a long ovation from the audience. It is now being shown throughout Yugoslavia and is being promoted with the slogan: ''The movie we have waited for 20 years.'' ''One cannot avoid Tito. He is the only common ground we have left now,'' Bresan told Reuters of the people of former Yugoslavia, explaining why the film was being received with enthusiasm in Serbia. Earlier, a Serbian film called ''Tito and I,'' a parody of the Tito years as seen through the eyes of a young boy, showed in Zagreb and for days drew roars of laughter from the packed house of a small art house cinema. ''This is a natural reaction of people who have realized after 10 years that they lived better before,'' sociologist Slaven Letica said of the blooming Tito trade. ''There is also a kind of nostalgia as people come to terms with their history.'' This cultural exchange would not have taken place when Croatia was ruled by the nationalist Franjo Tudjman, who held power from independence to his death last December. Tudjman's HDZ party lost a general election in January to a reformist coalition led by former Communists. TITO'S MIXED LEGACY Tito remains a controversial figure in the successor states to the former Yugoslav federation. For some he was a great statesman, for others a tyrant who tried to eradicate Croatian national sentiment. Some Serbs feel the same. Many still blame him for allowing the slaughter of thousands of Croatian troops who had collaborated with the Nazis after they surrendered to the allies in 1945. Some 45.8 per cent of those interviewed in one recent survey said they considered Tito a dictator, while 55.6 per cent said the same of Tudjman. In another poll, 60 per cent said Tito's remains should be brought home from a tomb in Belgrade. The son of peasants, Tito led the Yugoslav Communist party in the 1930s and organized resistance to Nazi Germany, Italian fascists and their local collaborators in World War II. He ruled post-war Yugoslavia with an iron fist but manoeuvred it away from eastern European Stalinism and preserved the country's multiethnic society. Although ruthless with political opponents, Tito was enormously popular with his people, projecting an image of a bon viveur who enjoyed king-size cigars, malt whisky and the company of Hollywood celebrities. During his lifetime, mass rallies were held each year to mark his birthday. Thousands of children dressed in white and blue with red scarves were bussed into Kumrovec to be sworn in as ''Tito's Pioneers'' each May and mile-long cordons of ''workers and peasants'' threw flowers at his Mercedes wherever he went. The republic that rose from the ashes of the old Yugoslavia quickly dismantled the symbols of communism and undertook to privatize state assets, a process some say produced dubious results in Croatia. ''The Marshal'' alludes to this when the main character, a policeman sent to investigate reports of the appearance of Tito's ghost on a remote Adriatic island, talks to a local tycoon in front of a decrepit Museum of the Anti-Fascist Struggle and the Socialist Revolution. ''We had no funds to maintain the museum so we had to privatize it,'' the tycoon says. ''And who bought it?'' he is asked. ''Ah, well, I did, for two kuna (30 cents),'' he replies. ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ______________________________________________________________________ Advertisement: 15% off Ashford Collection jewelry for Mother's Day! Mom will love these gorgeous pieces handpicked by our expert jewelry buyers - now 15% off and shipped FedEx overnight FREE! Spoiled as a child? Return the favor - get her gift at Ashford.com. http://on.linkexchange.com/?ATID=27&AID=1231 --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
