List of women
These pages are dedicated to women’s memories of resistance to war and nationalisms in the countries of former Yugoslavia, but also to the activities of all women in the world who, in the context of transitional processes, raise their voice against war violence and discrimination.
Zagreb Women’s Lobby press release
”List of women to be eliminated”
Zagreb Women’s Lobby
ZAGREB - This is not the first, nor - are we afraid, the last time that prominent Zagreb intellectuals Jelena Lovrić, Rada Iveković, Slavenka Drakulić, Vesna Kesić and Dubravka Ugrešić have been attacked for thinking. Those who are attacking them do it because of “evil thoughts”. However, never before have lists been composed of “women to be eliminated”. This is precisely what “GLOBUS”, a Zagreb weekly paper, did these days; but this paper has already made its name for publishing such lists.
Their names were published along with their personal information (place of birth, nationality, marital status, property ownership of their children and husbands, housing status, etc.). We cannot pretend to be surprised at the level of uncivilized behaviour contained in such an act, by the forgeries and ordinary lies that abound in this wanted list (e.g., Dubravka Ugrešić and Jelena Lovrić have never been members of any feminist group either in Zagreb or in Croatia or elsewhere; Slavenka Drakulić and Vesna Kesić were among the first to write about the war rapes and they both participated in various projects which supported the victims of war violence). We are also not surprised at the analytical blindness of “the Globus investigative team”, as this time it is not a case of feeble-mindedness but intent. Namely, the mentioned women were accused, inter alia, for covering up the rapes of Muslim and Croatian women by Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina by insisting on putting raped women first. We ask “the investigative team” and the entire public: are we really unable to conceptualize (even in the daily paper, for example the Mazowietski report) that women of other nationalities were raped as well and that this was done by Croatian Army soldiers.
Not one of the “accused” women or the more sensible part of the general public has ever equalized identity and intents of all warring armies. Assessments, even before serious investigations of those horrifying crimes were conducted, make it clear that rapes of women were a psychological strategy of the Serbian and Montenegrin Army that were more systematic and larger in number. However, it is a question of both personal and national honour to accept the deplorable fact that “our boys” also do it. We should renounce “our boys” if we want to be just in this unjust war. Women in history have never, and we hope in the future too, initiated a single war. Women have never been the ones who made decisions on these issues but they have been the ones who have suffered the most.
Finally, to what time, ideology and methods does the denunciation (again, based on ordinary lies) that these women were “communist profiteers” belong (especially nowadays when it is a kind of stigma and efficient disqualification to label somebody as an ex-member of the Yugoslav Communist Party)?!
We will not even mention the perversity of the mind that even misuses the rapes of women in order to humiliate and proscribe other women. The question that should be asked is who are the people profiting from the rapes of women and why!?!
Being fully aware of the fact that addressing this protest to the editors of Globus will be of no avail, we are addressing it to the general public of Croatia and to the world. We are protesting against these inciting methods, lies, forgeries and deliberate blindness. We demand the protection of the rights of these individuals (ironically, the text in Globus was published on Human Rights Day), the rights to different or even opposite opinions. And not just for these individuals but for every human being.