The two-day event, organised by the Ivo Pilar Institute of Social Sciences and the St. George association, is being held on the occasion of the first anniversary of the death of the prominent researcher and politician and founder of Croatia’s security-intelligence community.
Plenković said Tuđman was one of the last actors on the Croatian political scene who had detailed knowledge of the events since 1990 and before, which, he said, had helped him analyse, in a truth-loving way, processes and phenomena the country had been faced with.
He said Tuđman’s most important contribution was the establishment of the national security-intelligence system, his role in strengthening relations between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and the equality of BiH Croats in relation to the other two biggest ethnic groups, as well as his role in the 1991-95 Homeland War.
“He participated, along with his father, Croatia’s first president Franjo Tuđman, in all key events and is definitely one of the Croatian politicians who formed and shaped society and participated in the adoption of key strategic decisions that secured Croatia’s freedom, democracy and integration with the EU and NATO,” said Plenković.
As a member of parliament in several terms, Tuđman headed Croatia’s delegation at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and contributed to global security also beyond that transatlantic organisation, he said, adding that with his research Tuđman defended “the truth about his father”.
With books, facts and arguments he countered attacks by forgers of Croatia’s modern history on the legacy of the first Croatian president, said Plenković, pointing also to Tuđman’s political engagement in the HDZ party.
Tuđman was among the founders of the Ivo Pilar institute 30 years ago and the founder of the St. George association”, a non-government, non-party and non-profit association founded to promote development and research in the field of international, homeland, national and corporate security, it was said at the seminar.
He was the editor of the “National security and the future” magazine for 21 years and was a long-time professor at the Zagreb Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences’ Department of Information and Communication Sciences, it was said.
