CROATIA/USA/FRANCE: PROFILE - PRESIDENT FRANJO TUDJMAN OF CROATIA DIES IN HOSPITAL AGED 77

Record ID: 835980

  • Title: CROATIA/USA/FRANCE: PROFILE - PRESIDENT FRANJO TUDJMAN OF CROATIA DIES IN HOSPITAL AGED 77
  • Date: 11th December 1999
  • Summary: DRNIS, CROATIA (AUGUST 6, 1995) (REUTERS) HAS: TUDJMAN WALKS ALONG ROAD SURROUNDED BY PEOPLE/SINGS SONG / TAKES A DRINK (3 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 26th December 1999 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: VARIOUS LOCATIONS, CROATIA, KRAJINA REGION/ WASHINGTON D.C., UNITED STATES/ PARIS, FRANCE
  • City:
  • Country: Usa France Bosnia and Herzegovina Croatia
  • Topics: Health,Obituaries,Politics,People
  • Reuters ID: LVA6E0DGOY3IU0EABCEQV9V9D4EF
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: President Franjo Tudjman, the architect of Croatia's independence, has died in hospital aged 77 after six weeks of intensive treatment for abdominal disorders.
    State television broke into its regular programmes at 2 a.m.(0100 GMT) on Saturday (December 11) and a black-clad announcer read a brief statement announcing Tudjman's death, which will force the country to hold presidential elections in the next 60 days.
    Tudjman's spokesman Tihomir Vinkovic said the former communist general had died at 11:15 p.m.(2215 GMT on Friday) and that a state funeral would be held on Monday.
    Tudjman's body was to be transferred later on Saturday morning to the presidential palace, where it would be placed on display for citizens to pay respects, Vinkovic said.
    Parliament had declared Tudjman, who was said to have been fighting cancer since late 1996, temporarily incapacitated in late November and named Parliamentary Speaker Vlatko Pavletic as acting president.
    Tudjman was a communist general who turned to nationalism and led Croatia through war to independence from the crumbling Yugoslav federation in 1991.
    Croatians adored him almost fanatically as the Father of the Nation.But eight years on his popularity, charisma and health wore thin, as accusations of corruption within his government and among his allies grew while the population suffered increasing economic hardship.
    A central figure with wide constitutional powers to appoint all cabinet ministers, Tudjman refused in October to state outright whether he would recognise an opposition victory in parliamentary elections.
    His hardline rhetoric and dubious human rights record -- including almost equally harsh treatment of independent media, opposition leaders and the ethnic Serb minority -- did little to endear Tudjman to the West.
    But a clandestine attempt to divide neighbouring Bosnia with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic during the 1992-95 Bosnian war and to annex Croat territories remained his cardinal sin.
    For that purpose, analysts and diplomats believe, he supported separatist Bosnian Croats' bid to carve their own state and provided logistical and military support for their bloody 1993 war for land with erstwhile allies, Bosnian Moslems.
    Tudjman believed it was his duty to protect the interests of Croats and Croatia.He later reluctantly made peace with the Moslem leaders and earned Western praise for co-signing the 1995 Dayton peace treaty which ended the Bosnian war.
    Apart from visits to Turkey, Greece and Russia, Tudjman was rarely invited abroad and the expensive presidential plane stood idle in the Zagreb airport for most of his mandate.
    The president twice underwent abdominal surgery since being admitted to hospital for a ruptured large intestine on November 1, but his recovery was thwarted by peritonitis, sepsis and internal bleeding.
    He was treated for stomach cancer at Washington's Walter Reed military hospital in November 1996, although Croatian officials said it was only stomach ulcer.
    The illness did little to dampen his political fervour, speeches and rhetoric against the West and its representatives in Croatia.He labelled them spies and remained convinced of a conspiracy among Western allies to try to force his young country back into a new Yugoslav or Balkan federation.
    Tudjman formed the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) in 1989 with the help of rich, right-wing expatriates.Together, they set their sights on independence as the Yugoslav federation was disintegrating and Communism was dying across Eastern Europe.
    His national revival movement culminated in the 1991 secession, a year after HDZ defeated communists in the first free democratic elections in Croatia in the 20th century.
    Tudjman was elected president in 1992 and again in 1997, both times easily beating rival candidates.His mandate was to run until 2002.
    His government was stuffed with Bosnian Croats and a dozen seats in parliament were reserved for candidates put forward by the Croatian diaspora -- in practice HDZ members elected by Bosnian Croats.
    Tudjman was the youngest general in the late Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito's army, but his embrace of the nationalist agenda earned him five years in prison in 1970s and 1980s.
    Although he fought for Tito's partisans against Nazi Germany in World War Two, his later dabbling in history books damaged his anti-Nazi credentials as he revised down the number of victims killed by Croatia's fascist Ustasha regime in a concentration camp in 1941-45.
    Another controversial move was his plan to rebury the remains of members of the Ustasha regime alongside its victims as an attempt at national reconciliation.The plan was met with disgust and abruptly dropped.
    Both incidents prompted furious reactions from Israel and Tudjman had to rewrite parts of his book "Wastelands of History" and apologise to world Jewry for perceived insensitivity.
    His popularity at home suffered irreparably when he personally changed the name of the most popular soccer club from Dinamo to Croatia.He later turned a deaf ear to fans' pleas to return the old name, claiming it had "communist connotations".
    Another disappointment came in late 1995, when he refused to appoint an opposition mayor of Zagreb on grounds that national security would suffer from an opposition rule in the capital.
    With a pronounced taste for elegant clothes and a passionate love for soccer and tennis, Tudjman maintained that his personal wealth did not increase after he took power.
    But a local bank clerk revealed last year that his wife had several secret accounts with over 250,000 marks (130,000 U.S.dollars), which his wife Ankica said were royalties from his books.
    He dismissed all criticism against him as coming from enemies of Croatia.Last year he parted ways with several top HDZ officials, including his cabinet chief, who quit their posts over what they said were differing views on democracy.
    Tudjman is survived by his wife, two sons and a daughter.
    Croatia will now have to hold early presidential elections within 60 days.
    It was not immediately known who the presidential candidates would be, but the election will take place shortly after or simultaneously with a vote for the lower house of parliament scheduled for January 3.
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