Croatian National Resistance

The Croatian National Resistance (Croatian: Hrvatski narodni otpor, HNO; Spanish: Resistencia Nacional Croata), also referred to as Otpor, was an Ustaša organization founded in 1955 in Spain.[1] The HNO ran an armed organisation, Drina, which continued to be active well into the 1970s.[2]

The organization operated between legitimate emigre functions and a thuggish underworld. Its leaders tried to distance the organization from the acts of the so-called renegade elements. It embraced a radical nationalist ideology that differed only marginally from Ustaše ideology.[3]

The HNO had stated in their constitution that:[4][5]

[We] regard Yugoslavism and Yugoslavia as the greatest and only evil that has caused the existing calamity... We therefore consider every direct or indirect help to Yugoslavia as treason against the Croatian nation... Yugoslavia must be destroyed—be it with the help of the Russians or the Americans, of Communists, non-Communists or anti-Communists—with the help of anyone willing the destruction of Yugoslavia: destroyed by the dialectic of the word, or by dynamite—but at all costs destroyed.

The organization published its own magazine, Drina.[6] It existed until 1991.

  1. ^ "Yugoslav Emigre Extremists" (PDF). Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room. CIA. 29 May 1980. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 23, 2017.
  2. ^ Janke, Peter (1983). Guerrilla and Terrorist Organizations: A World Directory and Bibliography. Macmillan. p. 113. ISBN 0-02-916150-9.
  3. ^ Hockenos 2003, p. 23.
  4. ^ Bellamy, Alex J. (2004). The Formation of Croatian National Identity: A Centuries-Old Dream?. Manchester University Press. p. 93. ISBN 0-7190-6502-X.
  5. ^ Conflict Studies, Issues 103-117, Current Affairs Research Service Centre, 1979
  6. ^ Grubisa, Damir (January 14, 1989). "Yugoslavia Ad Came From Nazi Terrorists". The New York Times.