President Milanović at 30th Anniversary of ‘Tigers’ First Guards Brigade: Your Brigade Had a Glorious and Flawless Journey

The President of the Republic and Commander in Chief of the Croatian Armed Forces Zoran Milanović attended the 30^th anniversary celebration marking the formation of the ‘Tigers’ First Guards Brigade at the “Croatia” Barracks in Zagreb, where he emphasized that the brigade not only had a glorious, but also flawless journey.

“For those who were not here thirty years ago, it is difficult to imagine what that meant and what a change that was in the lives of young people, of those who volunteered to defend Croatia,” President Milanović said at the ceremony, reminding everyone of the spirit of that period. “It was a time of turbulent politics. Attacks, encroachments, provocations of political Belgrade and of instrumentalized members of the Serb minority in Croatia took place on a daily basis. But again, we somehow had faith and hoped that with the first democratic elections, Croatia would move towards Europe, where it belongs. This was not destined, it was prevented,” said the President.

“To jump back then into uniforms from a comfortable life and into insanely bold perils, sometimes even adventures – only the bravest could do that,” he said, recalling the words of British Prime Minister Churchill, who said eighty years ago, when Germany attacked England, that ‘never was so much owed by so many to so few’. “However, that was power against power. That was strong against strong, rich against rich. In the 1990s, Croatia was unfortunately anything but that. Deceived, robbed and disarmed. Those who took up arms back then and faced peril – that’s a hundred times more courageous than a British Air Force pilot. And that is why I will repeat these words often: Croatia has never owed so much to such a small number of good people. This deserves more than gratitude and more than reverence, this simply deserves to be repeated all the time,” said President Milanović.

“In the war and after the war, in which they reproached us for all kinds of things, accused us of what we had done, what we had not done and what never took place, you were under constant scrutiny. The ‘Tigers’ had a flawless journey. Today, this may seem like a normal thing to some. However, that war was bloody. The resources at your disposal were initially much scarcer than those that the enemy had or stole. Only exceptional people could endure such conditions of inequality in view of (military) equipment – when you had to defend yourself, being aware that the situation would last, and the question was whether help would arrive and what would happen in a year, and when you had to abide by the rules of international law and not tarnish your reputation by any means. This is something that needs to be pointed out repeatedly as an example to young people, not only in regard to fighting wars – which I believe will not come – but for the sake of their conduct in our society and community. Even in times of greatest hardship and peril, people must respect each other. That is the only way to achieve victory and success,” said the President. He underscored that wars are over and that there can never and should never be such unity, unanimity and solidarity as there was back then, because such solidarity only manifests in times of catastrophe and extreme hardship.

President Milanović said that we are a democratic society, a small and sufficiently organized state, and that we must accept the fact that we do not all think alike and that we will not always think alike. “But some fundamental principles, fundamental human rights and privileges, some fundamental unity – we need that nonetheless. I think that as a society we have matured enough to rise up after thirty years from the environment in which we lived, like in a swamp, for years and centuries – in which we could not always breathe in the right way and in which not these masks were worn, which will probably soon be a thing of the past, but some other, metaphorical masks; an environment which was insincere and violent, in which history experimented on Croatia and the people of this region. We can now say that we are rightly on our own land. A community of citizens, Croats and non-Croats, in the European Union, in search of our own contentment, wealth, security, believing that what took place in the 1990s will never happen again,” President Milanović said in conclusion.

The President of the Republic and Commander in Chief of the Croatian Armed Forces laid a joint wreath at the Monument to the Fallen and Missing Members of the ‘Tigers’ 1^st Guards Brigade, together with the envoys of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Croatia, the Speaker of the Croatian Parliament, the Chief of the General Staff of the Croatian Armed Forces and the Minister of Defense. He also participated in a beret award ceremony for members of the ‘Tigers’ 1^st Mechanized Guards Brigade.

PHOTO: Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia / Dario Andrišek