Momcilo Vukasinovich, "Momo" to his friends, a member of our party, has died on the Croatian front. We found out only a few days ago, when a few young people from Bjelovar, friends of his, came to our Zagreb office to join the party, and told us that Momo had died.

Momo was born in Bjelovar in January 1965. A Serb by birth, he was unemployed. An electrician for whom writing was a hobby, he had for many years known of the Radical Party. He became a member for the first time in 1990, taking part in an organizational meeting at the Budapest headquarters.

He joined the Croatian national guard as a volunteer in October 1991.

He was killed at Komletinci, near Vinkovci, together with another six young men from Bjelovar, while out on a recce. They were ambushed by Serbs belonging to the so-called "white eagles". Their bodies were retrieved from enemy territory by another patrol from the same unit.

On December 4, 1991 Momo was felled by a bullet from a sub-machine gun which hit him in the neck.

At their own expense, after he died, his friends published a collection of Momcilo's stories, which also contained a photograph of him taken during a Radical meeting at Bjelovar and a letter written to a friend. We feel it our duty to publish this letter, as testimony to and in memory of a dear friend, a Serbian Radical in Croatia who gave his life for an ideal of freedom and justice.

Letter from Momcilo Vukasinovich to Drazen B.

Bjelovar, 13 October 1991

Hello,

I feel a little silly. I don't even know what I want to write. To tell the truth, I hope that it doesn't happen to me and that you won't be reading this without me, but...

I hope I don't seem too gloomy. You see, I want to explain to you why I "actively" entered into this mess. You know, volunteer and all that...

To be honest, I will never forgive them for making me kill them. I read that in a book, and I agree with it. Believe u2e. me. You have to know that I am not a hero, that I'm dying of fear, but I can't stay out of it. I can't believe it myself, but that's the way it is.

I've just remembered Budapest and our transnational Radical Party, the struggle for the rights of society's outcasts, for the legalization of prostitution, for the free sale of narcotics... And then "Leptir" (The Butterfly, a magazine - ed.) and everything else. A different world, as you said. Words of the "cellar-dwellers" (refugees who live in cellars because of the bomb raids - ed.).

I'm leaving you all my stories (nobody will know what they mean to me and why I wrote them). I hate the blackouts, human beings feel bad under such unnatural conditions. I can't think of one single intelligent sentence. That's why sometimes I get nasty. On the other hand, I can't stay at home, waiting for who knows what to happen.

I have to keep active, I must go to the front line. They say that everyone chooses his own life, I've chosen mine, and it will turn out however it turns out.

I want you to know that more than anything else I have always longed for a Europe without borders, in respect of the rights of the individual. I am not a Croatian, but my home is Croatia. By origin I am a Serb, from a family that for seven or eight generations has been in Croatia. I am not ashamed of this. I will never deny my name and my origins. I am sorry to be fighting against Serbs, but I can't do anything about that. My opinion is that we are fighting against the most backward kind of Stalinism. In the end, it was they who sent the tanks in, against their students in March last year.

I don't want to "break" with my opinions on this war. I hope that you really understand what I mean. It is not a matter of justification; I don't need to justify myself to anybody - I just want to confirm to you what you already know.

I hope that "Leptir" is still flying, and I will send you more of my stories, if that's possible. Maybe with other motivations and on other themes, if I survive, of course.

Goodbye, and don't judge me harshly.

Momcilo Vukasinovich