Speech #880282825

Marica Maras (woman). .9 months. Some Communist regimes provide on the border of their countries barbed wire. high walls. military units. police dogs. and mines to prevent their citizens from fleeing the country. The Yugoslav Government has decided to abandon most of those measures and has introduced a new systemto buy refugees from the Western neighboring countries through mutual agreements in trade. through concessions. or through political questions. Such agreements are always secret. but because the Iron Curtain is not leakproof. some examples will be mentioned here for the first time. 1. In the ItalianYugoslav agreement about fishing in the Adriatic (195859) was included a provision for Italian Governments(a) To prevent any political activity by the Yugoslav refugees in Italy. (b) Determined was also the percentage of all new refugees to be extradited forcibly into Yugoslavia. It was motivated by the necessity to discourage and minimize the influx of new refugees. 2. In a contract between Yugoslavia and Italian company ENI (Ente Nazionale Idrocarburithe mightiest industrial concern with Italian federal funds) about drilling of oilwells. and about chemical installations. there were also additional provisions (never made public). (a) Entire Italian press controlled by ENI (with leading Italian newspaper nl Giorno) will take a friendly attitude toward Yugoslavia and print articles about political and economic situation in Yugoslavia as normal in order to influence the Italian Government and the public to come to the conclusion that there is no necessity for anybody to flee Yugoslavia (moral boycott of refugees). (b) To put a pressure on the Italian Government to prevent any political activity among the refugees in Italian camps (to dissolve all refugee organizations and to prevent any representatives of national organizations to enter the camps). (c) To increase substantially the requirements for recognition of political refugee status and to enlarge the percentage of refugees to be forcibly repatriated. Here we can include also the rumor that some officials in Europe handling the refugees on local. national. and international level receive money and gifts from the Yugoslav Communist Government. Sometimes the Communist officials talk about their success in getting almost all new refugees if they want them. The compensation for such favors is also timber and furniture exported by Yugoslavia. Fleeing west. the new refugee is in an abnormal mental condition and in an entirely new environment: he is still scared by the dangers of illegal crossing of the border. doesnt speak the language of the country. and has no knowledge of the customs or the laws. Contrary to the expectations there are among the new refugees very few intellectuals. industrialists. or welltodo men. It is irony that all newcomers are of the poor working class with a mixture of peasant youth. all fleeing the workers paradise. Because they are poor. this Is also the reason to declare them "economic refugees." No representative of any charitable organization. no lawyer. no relative or friend. even no priest is permitted to talk to a new refugee when he arrives to the West. No one is allowed to witness the screening either. There is always an official interpreter for the screening who is seldom neutral and very often a paid Communist agent. Such interpreter performs hisduties to both of his employers: he complies with the order of his Western European government to help reduce the number of refugees. and on the other hand he lets the Communist government get back most of the refugees they may want. The percentage of refugees granted political asylum is mysteriously determined in advance. It amounts today to only 5 to 15 percent of the refugees fleeing Yugoslavia. Even those few refugees from Yugoslavia who are granted political asylum are frequently put in a lower category than the refugees from other Commulnst countries. thus being treated as secondclass refugees. Strict secrecy characterizes all refugee matters in Europe. The secrecy was particularly tightened after care for the refugees and all decisions about their fate was handed over to the European governments. Those governments created also considerable difficulties for the international humanitarian organizations. They tried to prevent anybody from having knowledge of their "internal affairs" concerning refugees. Particularly they oppose to allow any national or charitable refugee organization to communicate with the refugees. Since last year even refugee priests cannot enter the refugee camps in Italy in order to perform their ecclesiastical duties. The government gives permission only to those national priests who are In possession of a Yugoslav passport and to one or two other priests known as .Communist collaborators. At this time Yugoslav Government is trying to persuade all governmental and church authorities to place the religious service in the refugee camps and the humanitarian activities for refugees exclusively into the hands of the priests to be sent by the regime from Yugoslavia. The Communists proposed to send the Franciscan monks from Bosnia. who collaborate with the Communists and are members of the Communistdominated "Professional Union of Priests." Prisoners of war are protected by the Geneva Convention. the inmates of a concentration camp are supposed to be supported by the Red Cross organization. even extradited criminals are protected by some international law. There is no international law nor convention protecting the extradited refugees. For centuries the Croatian people have stood protecting Western culture and Christianity. For three decades and today the Croatians have been most ardent Communist fighters. and onethird of the Croatian adult male population was wiped out by the A4493 Communists in Croatia since the end of the war.