A rejection of Slovenian history, of the foundations of the Slovenian state, and a denial of the victims of a totalitarian regime that not only left thousands dead but also left behind the mourning relatives of the dead, who will be haunted by it for generations to come. The abolition of the Museum of Slovenian Independence and the desire to bring back the statues of dictators, and now the latest shameful act of the Golob government – the abolition of the National Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Communist Violence – is, according to Janez Janša’s writings, an announcement of a new civil war.
“Yesterday, the neo-communist government of the Republic of Slovenia announced a new civil war with this despicable act,” Janez Janša wrote on Twitter, recalling the words of France Bučar that the latter said more than three decades ago. The actions of the current government are shameless, and their predictions are clearly ominous.
According to Janez Janša, the actions of the Golob government are leading us in the direction of announcing a new civil war, “33 years ago, when the multi-party assembly was constituted, and the statue of Josip Broz was removed from the building’s foyer, Dr France Bučar said that this was the end of the civil war in Slovenia,” Janša wrote, recalling a day that has remained in the memory of all Slovenians. On the 26th of December 1990, in front of the members of the National Assembly, he proclaimed an independent Slovenia. Yet, 29 years later, Bučar’s historic words have still not come true. An independent Slovenia was intended to unite Slovenians, who got their country at the expense of the fight against the totalitarian regime, but the current government is still denying the truth and dividing the people. And it does this shamelessly and blatantly, as its latest act has confirmed.
“Yesterday’s regime rehabilitation of communist crimes is at the same time deliberately undermining the remarkable reconciliatory efforts of the generation that democratised Slovenia and made it independent. The abolition of remembrance of the victims of communist crimes, most of whom still have neither death certificates nor graves – while at the same time rehabilitating and glorifying mass murderers – is an ominous announcement by the current regime that it is apparently ready to fill the caves and mine shafts with dissenting voices again,” wrote Janez Janša.
These despicable acts foreshadow an ominous prediction
Instead of addressing the serious problems that the crisis is causing the citizens, the government of Robert Golob is engaging in ideological moves aimed at glorifying a communist regime that has systematically violated human rights and freedoms. After having arranged for the abolition of the Museum of Slovenian Independence, Asta Vrečko, the Minister of Culture from the coalition Left party (Levica), now says that she would like to see the statues of Tito and others returned to the Brdo Park. With news like this, one rightly feels as if we are not in the year 2023, because by doing something like that, we would be celebrating a regime that has systematically violated human rights and freedoms. It is impossible to ignore the fact that Tito’s regime was responsible for the deaths of around half a million people, mainly political opponents, and that bodies have been found in more than 600 killing sites in Slovenia alone. The abolition of the National Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Communist Violence was the latest despicable act of the current government, while Minister Vrečko of the Left party also attended the anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of Slovenia at the Barlič homestead in Čebine.
The government’s guerrilla action
The Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska Demokratska stranka – SDS) has also reacted to the abolition of the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Communist Crimes. We are publishing their press release in its entirety below.
“On the 12th of May 2022, the government of Janez Janša declared that the 17th of May 2022 shall be observed in the Republic of Slovenia as the National Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Communist Violence. In its explanatory statement, it stated, inter alia:
“The independent state of Slovenia was founded in 1991 and based on the condemnation of all totalitarianisms, including the crimes of communism. The European Union is also founded on the condemnation of all totalitarianisms. Unfortunately, in the independent Republic of Slovenia, the attitude towards the victims of communist totalitarianism is still, or even increasingly, inadequate.”
With all the barbaric moves with which the Freedom Movement (Gibanje Svoboda), the Social Democrats (Socialni demokrati – SD) and the Left parties are breaking up the democratic and civilised state, the abolition of the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Communist Violence is just another expected instant guerrilla action which is destroying the fundamental norms of civilisation, which touch on the notions of respect, justice and truth, on which any mature state entity reconciled with its history must stand firm. The government is wasting opportunities to carry out the necessary reforms and to focus on the future. While it could be seeking common solutions to our problems, it is instead fuelling hatred and division, and turning once again to revenge, lies, cover-ups and a rehashing of the past.
Our message to the revanchist establishment in power is that the abolishment of the day of remembrance does not mean the obliteration of the more than 600 murder sites and hundreds of thousands of victims of the regime they defend as its proud successors. And, as missionary Pedro Opeka said at yesterday’s commemoration ceremony, “Because we are human”: “Truth and the acknowledgement of wrongs are the basis of any reconciliation.”
Ana Horvat
