Cultural Identity Politics in the (Post-)Transitional Societies

Identity construction in the Balkan region - Austrian interests and involvement in a historical perspective
against “the Serb” who was defined as a “descendant of Gavrilo Princip”, both nationalist
and seen as responsible for the south-Slavic type of communism. To communicate this
anti-Serb and pro-Croat sentiment in an easy mainstream way one must know that the
Austrian state television ORF for some time employed and gave voice to prominent
exiled Ustashi such as Stjepan “Stipe” Tomičić, who changed his name to Alfons Dalma
when he started his post-Ustasha career. Under this name he was editor-in-chief for
current political affairs in the most important media of the country between 1967 and
1974 and left pro-Croat sympathies.
Politically it was the time just after the conservative Christian Democrats (ÖVP) took
over the foreign ministry with Alois Mock in the key function. Although the coalition
government together with the Social Democrats (SPÖ) was led by one of them, foreign
politics were in the hands of a radical right and conservative wing of the ÖVP. The
mastermind behind Alois Mock was a man called Andreas Khol, whose political ideology
was strengthened under the secessionist movement in South Tyrol/Alto Adige against
the central state of Italy. One member of parliament within the ÖVP fraction, Felix
Ermacora, openly asked if Slovenia would like to become the 10th Austrian federal state,
hence using the territorial disintegration of Yugoslavia to expand Austrian state territory
according to historical patterns. Ljubljana officials were not amused, as one can imagine.
On the side of the parliamentary opposition there was a small green parliamentary
group, holding ten seats. Two of them belonged to members of the national minority
of Croats within Austria. In 1991 it turned out that one former Austrian green
parliamentarian, Karl Smolle, from a Christian Slovene minority organization, became
the first ambassador of the Republic of Slovenia, even when Slovenia was not yet
recognized as a state.
Geopolitically Austrian politics regarding Yugoslavia and its dissolution functioned
as a testing ground for German foreign politics. What the German minister for foreign
affairs, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, did not dare to postulate, Mock expressed openly. So
Austrian foreign policy flew kites for Germany to check if the United States would
accept the aim of the German-Austrian axis to help in the division of Yugoslavia and
thus to gain economic and political influence, especially in the northern republics.
On the 20 June 1991 one could clearly see this function of Austrian foreign policy.
Only one day before US Secretary of State, James Baker, was in Belgrade to tell all
six leaders of the respective republics that the USA would not recognize Croat and
Slovene independence, as had been announced in Zagreb and Ljubljana (and put into
practice) for the forthcoming days, Austrian foreign minister Alois Mock went to
Berlin to a meeting of the Council of the Conference on Security and Cooperation
in Europe (CSCE; today known as the OSCE: Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe) to prepare for suspension of Belgrade’s membership from of the
international organization. Mock took the Slovene “foreign minister” Dimitrij Rupel as
a camouflaged person in the Austrian delegation to Berlin to openly affront Belgrade.
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