On Friday night, December 10, 1999, the first president of modern Croatia, Franjo Tudjman, died. He was elected three times by an absolute majority of the Croatian people. Croatians consider him the father of their nation. Consequently, a BBC series documenting his life bears the title "Franjo Tudjman--The Croatian George Washington." I would like to take the occasion of Tudjman's death to reflect on his achievements. This seems especially important given the cold attitude of the Western media towards his death.

Born in 1922, Tudjman grew up to be a supporter of the Croatian Peasants' Party--a moderate leftist party concerned with the poverty of people living in the rural parts of Croatia. As World War II struck and a minority of Croatians supported the puppet state erected by the Nazis, Tudjman chose to battle the fascists instead. He joined the Yugoslav Partisans and fought in the war on the side of the Allies. Thus, in Tudjman's death, Europe has lost its last leader who actively fought against fascism.

Having reached the rank of general in the Yugoslav People's Army, Tudjman became disillusioned by the communists' hegemonic policies created by Tito. When he expressed his dissatisfaction with the regime, he was forced out of political life and turned to academia. After receiving his Ph.D. in history from the University of Zagreb, Tudjman became a specialist on 20th-century Yugoslav history. His chief concern in his academic writing was the preservation of Croatian identity.

His writings on Croatian language and the right of self-determination led to the assassination of his father and stepmother by the Tito regime. Tudjman was imprisoned for four months. However, his academic work constituted the backbone of his future political objectives. In 1989, as the communists' power crumbled, Tudjman saw a chance for Croatia. In what is perhaps his greatest achievement, he unified all Croats--the children of the Nazi supporters and the communists, the rich migrs and those in rural areas--to form a unanimous movement striving for independence.

In 1991, as the elected president, he declared Croatia's independence. The following year, Croatia was internationally recognized. The Croatian will for independence, of which Tudjman became the embodiment, was answered with violence. The Yugoslav People's Army and Serb paramilitary forces attacked Croatian citizens first hesitantly and then in a more open war. Croatia simultaneously faced open aggression and the tasks of political maturation. Tudjman took on both these major challenges to the newborn nation.

The Yugoslav People's Army was, according to the American diplomat George Kennan, the third strongest in Europe. A Croatian army did not exist in the early '90s. On the one hand, Tudjman managed to organize resistance and thus prevent the total crushing of a young democracy by tanks--a scenario that would have been comparable to the events in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

On the other hand, Tudjman was willing to negotiate and to uphold a dialogue. Consequently, he prevented an all-out war, which would have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths on all sides and could have led to the destruction of the country.

If the unification of the Croatian people was not Tudjman's greatest achievement, then it was his walk on the tight rope between freedom and destruction. He did not lose the former, nor suffer the latter.