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“To My Beloved Croatia,
When will you break free from your chains and rise up with one voice, tall and proud? When will you finally notice the gathering storm and take shelter? When will you stop thinking like a slave and seize your destiny?
I wait, I wait, I wait.”
Truth & Justice
The View from Washington 's Present Crisis
By Jeffrey T. Kuhner
(Hrvatski - AnteGotovina.com)
Croatia is facing its most severe crisis since it won its war for independence in 1995. During the next few months, the fate of Gen. Ante Gotovina—and more importantly, that of Croatia—may be decided. Zagreb is launching an all-out attempt to capture him; the government hopes that this will facilitate Croatia's entry into the European Union.
Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and President Stipe Mesic have made it their top priority to send Gen. Gotovina to The Hague. Both leaders claim they believe the general is “innocent.” Hence, they argue he should defend himself in court against the malicious accusations put forth by the tribunal's chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte.
“We really believe he has a winnable case,” a senior Croatian diplomat recently confided.
Moreover, it is a common view among Zagreb's political elite that the voluntary surrender or capture of Gen. Gotovina will remove the final obstacle blocking Croatia's accession into the EU. “Gotovina is holding us back from Europe. He is holding back our prosperity and economic development,” declared Croatia's former Ambassador to the United States, Ivan Grdesic, at a 2004 banquet in Chicago sponsored by the Croatian American Association. “If he was really a patriot and a man of courage, he would surrender to The Hague immediately.”
Mr. Grdesic, as usual, is wrong. More importantly, Mr. Sanader and Mr. Mesic are also wrong. In fact, their policies of appeasement towards Del Ponte pose a mortal threat to Croatia's national security interests and to the existence of the country itself. Rather than bringing Croatia into Europe, sending Gen. Gotovina to The Hague will be the death blow to Zagreb's national sovereignty; the country will thereby be relegated to third-class status as a permanent part of “the Western Balkans.” The Gotovina indictment is the poisoned chalice of Croatian politics. By drinking from it, Zagreb's elite will be committing national suicide.
Dangers of Unconditional Cooperation with The Hague The first problem with Croatia's policy of “unconditional cooperation” with The Hague tribunal is that it violates the legal theory at the core of international relations for the past several centuries—namely, what scholars refer to as “territorial exclusivity.” This theory holds that national governments have exclusive sovereignty over their territories, especially regarding the prosecution and punishment of war crimes committed on their soil. The only exception to this established theory is if a state is unable to pursue war criminals because of legal anarchy created by a protracted war or because the national territory is under foreign occupation (such as Germany and Japan immediately following World War II). The reason national governments historically have refused to cede sovereignty over war crimes cases to an outside, international tribunal is that it implies moral and legal inferiority. It is saying that those governments do not have the moral legitimacy or the legal capabilities to try cases in their domestic courts.
This very principle in fact is held so dear by nations around the world that they are even willing to go to war in order to defend this right. For example, in 1914 the Serbian government vehemently objected when the Austrians sent an ultimatum insisting on investigating the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand within Serbian territory. The Serbs ceded on every item in that fatal ultimatum but not on this last one—a point of honor that was understood and supported by many other foreign nations including France and Britain.
Also, more recently, the Chilean government was deeply insulted when a Spanish judge sought to try former strongman Augusto Pinochet in a foreign court for crimes committed in Chile during the 1970s and 1980s. Chile rightfully insisted that Pinochet be tried in a domestic court. The Chilean government eventually succeeded in its bid. This marked a significant victory for the country's fledgling democracy.
However, instead of defending Croatia's territorial exclusivity, Zagreb has frittered away its hard-won sovereignty and constitutional self-government by allowing The Hague tribunal to dominate the country's legal jurisdiction. Like all great statesmen, former President Franjo Tudjman had his strengths and weaknesses. But one of his greatest mistakes is that, this supposed arch-nationalist, badly undermined Croatia's international standing by agreeing to cooperate with the tribunal. Ultimately, he did so only because Zagreb was facing diplomatic isolation and economic sanctions. Nevertheless, his decision put Croatia on the road to becoming a colony of The Hague and more importantly, of Brussels. By accepting the policy of unconditional cooperation with the ICTY, Tudjman did what very few leaders have done: He allowed his nation's democratic institutions to be degraded, and put its civilizational destiny in the hands of an unelected, foreign tribunal that is neither accountable nor responsive to the Croatian people.
Most self-respecting democracies would never allow their constitutional sovereignty to be so arbitrarily and needlessly violated—no matter how much international pressure is exerted upon them. Israel, for example, had numerous wars with its Arab neighbors and continues to occupy Palestinian territories. Yet Israelis on both the Left and the Right are united in their opposition to having their soldiers be subject to the whims of an international court.
Also, despite incessant demands that deposed dictator Saddam Hussein and his brutal Baathist henchmen be tried by a foreign tribunal, Iraq's feisty democrats insist the Butcher of Baghdad face his victims in an Iraqi court. They are not willing to cede their demands for justice to some obscure, supra-national entity.
Tudjman's Legacy Yet it is doubtful that Tudjman would have allowed Gen. Gotovina to be sold down the river, regardless of the diplomatic consequences. Although Tudjman sent more Croatian military officials to The Hague than Ivica Racan, Mr. Sanader and Mr. Mesic combined, their indictments never threatened the dignity and legitimacy of the Homeland War. Tudjman was many things—a Central European conservative, a romantic intellectual, a born-again Catholic and a former communist apparatchik—but above all he was Croatia's Bismarck: a first-rank statesman who forged his country's independence through “blood and iron.”
Tudjman understood that Croatia fought a just war for national liberation not only from Serb-dominated Communist tyranny, but from centuries of foreign repression. He understood that the Homeland War represented the legitimate aspirations of the Croatian people to affirm their God-given rights to life, liberty and self-government. He understood that Croatia's eventual triumph in its war for independence, especially the spectacular success of Operation Storm, signified a great victory for the forces of democracy and national self-determination. Gen. Gotovina's troops liberated large swaths of Croatian territory that were brutally occupied by Serb paramilitaries; he also saved tens of thousands of besieged Muslim refugees from being slaughtered in northwestern Bosnia. Gen. Gotovina's forces delivered a decisive blow to Slobodan Milosevic's genocidal project of an ethnically pure “Great Serbia,” which butchered over 250,000 people (many of whom were the elderly, women and children) and drove nearly 2 million from their homes.
In Croatia alone, Milosevic's marauders murdered nearly 20,000 Croats, ethnically cleansed over 180,000, raped countless women (often in front of their children or husbands to terrorize the population), pillaged and looted dozens of villages, destroyed entire cities and towns, and annexed nearly one-third of the country for three-and-a-half years. Gen. Gotovina's brilliant military leadership ended Croatia's long nightmare. And more remarkable still, General Gotovina achieved this by incurring minimal civilian casualties. If ever there was a just war and a just military campaign, this was it. Tudjman understood all of this. That is why he never would have agreed to send Gen. Gotovina to The Hague to face trumped up charges of “command responsibility” for the operation because this threatens everything Tudjman sought to accomplish.
Numerous international law experts and news publications—from Newsweek to the Wall Street Journal to the Jerusalem Post to my paper, The Washington Times—have examined the charges against the general and have rendered a unanimous and unequivocal verdict: the indictment is weak and deeply flawed. So why then shouldn't the general voluntarily surrender and fight it out in court?
Gen. Gotovina Must Never Surrender The answer is simple and it is one that Gen. Gotovina is perfectly aware of: the indictment is a trap from which he—or for that matter any other general in human history—can never be found innocent. By indicting him on the basis of “command responsibility,” which advances the completely radical notion that senior commanders are responsible for crimes carried out by their subordinates, even if they did not actually order or sanction these crimes, The Hague tribunal has set the legal bar so high that no general of Gotovina's stature could evade a guilty verdict. The tribunal is essentially accusing him of not being God. It is claiming that, by virtue of his position, he should have had the foresight to anticipate and prevent any possible future crimes committed by his soldiers during Operation Storm.
Yet the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that the military campaign was carried out exceptionally quickly, ending within three days; civilian casualties were minimal (roughly 150 Serb civilians), and even many of those atrocities were carried out not by Gotovina's troops, but by returning irregulars bent on revenge. Moreover, during Del Ponte's prosecution of Slobodan Milosevic, she herself has revealed that it was the local Serb leadership in Knin, and not Gotovina's forces, that ordered the evacuation of the civilian Serb population prior to the commencement of the operation. Recent evidence has also come to light showing that Gen. Gotovina investigated nearly 300 isolated cases of alleged wrongdoing by his soldiers, and he punished many of them. Hence, he led a surgical, American-backed military campaign that minimized civilian deaths, restored his country's territorial integrity and averted a humanitarian catastrophe. He deserves the Noble Peace Prize rather than to be indicted as a war criminal.
According to the rationale being used against Gen. Gotovina, every military commander since the beginning of human history is a “war criminal” because atrocities have been committed in every campaign. For example, George Washington's troops committed numerous crimes, including rape, indiscriminate murder of civilians and the looting of Loyalist homes during the American Revolution. Was Washington also a war criminal according to the ICTY's new definition of “command responsibility” because he failed to prevent the barbarities committed by some of his soldiers?
Furthermore, is the commander of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Gen. Tommy Franks, a war criminal because some of his troops murdered innocent civilians or did nothing to prevent the mass looting that took place after Saddam's fall? According to the ICTY's twisted logic, he is. (In fact, it is precisely the incoherence and legal absurdity of the ICTY's theory of “command responsibility” that has angered senior Bush administration officials, such as John Bolton, the President's nominee to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.) But, of course, Gen. Franks or any other Western commander has not been indicted by an international court. The anti-American internationalists at the United Nations are aware of the public outrage it would cause. Gen. Gotovina, however, has become the laboratory rat for Del Ponte and her fellow activists at The Hague. Their goal is to rewrite international law; they hope to pave the way for a utopian global order that seeks to eradicate war through judicial fiat.
It is the nature of military conflict that evil acts are committed. What distinguishes the good side from the bad one is the purpose and overall conduct of the war. Milosevic's marauders waged an aggressive campaign based on mass murder and ethnic cleansing. Gen. Gotovina's forces launched a defensive operation that saved untold numbers of lives and liberated the region from Milosevic's genocidal grip. Del Ponte is trying to rewrite the history of the break-up of Yugoslavia. She is seeking to equate the actions of monsters like Milosevic, Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic with those, such as Gen. Gotovina, who defeated them.
Establishing the Basis for a Greater Serbia If Gen. Gotovina is handed over to The Hague, he will face a rigged trial where he will be found guilty. An innocent man and a war hero will thus be falsely imprisoned; his life and reputation will be destroyed. The Gotovina case has repercussions that are much larger than the fate of one man. Croatia will be branded in the eyes of the international community as a nation based on ethnic cleansing and mass murder. This will destroy the country's international standing, its sovereign legitimacy and its territorial integrity. In short, a guilty verdict will establish the moral and legal basis for Belgrade to launch another attempt to reconstitute a “Greater Serbia.”
In fact, Serbian revanchists openly acknowledge this, which is why Belgrade and the Serbian lobby in Washington are adamantly insisting that the general be sent to The Hague. One of Del Ponte's key sources of misinformation in her witch hunt against Gen. Gotovina (and other Croat generals) has been Savo Strbac, a former government secretary in the rebel Serb self-styled “Krajina” para-state. Investigative journalist Brian Gallagher has incisively uncovered that Strbac was a high-ranking official of the RSK (Republika Serpska Krajina). In other words, Strbac was an important participant in what The Hague itself has called “a joint criminal enterprise.”
“Our wish is to live with the other Serbs of the former Yugoslavia,” he told the New York Times on Dec. 4, 1994. “The Croats never asked us about secession, and the fact is we don't want to live with them because of our memories of genocide during World War II. So let us secede from Croatia the way Croatia seceded from Yugoslavia.”
Mr. Gallagher has revealed that Strbac, as the head of a non-governmental organization, known as “Veritas,” which purports to help Serbs displaced from Croatia, has been intimately involved in helping the tribunal prosecute leading Croats. According to Mr. Gallagher, the tribunal's then-Deputy Prosecutor Graham Blewitt sent out a “Letter of Endorsement” to help this ex-RSK official to raise funds for Veritas. Dated March 2, 2000, the letter says that the organization “led by Mr. Savo Strbac” assists the prosecutor in a “professional, serious and responsible manner by collecting information about certain events which occurred during the period 1990-1995 in Croatia.” The letter goes on to stress that Veritas provides “access” to victims and witnesses, and that several Veritas projects “if properly funded” could “advance considerably some important investigations of the prosecutor.”
It is scandalous that the tribunal would be relying on a Serbian fascist and high-ranking official of the RSK criminal enterprise for assistance in its indictments of Croatian generals. The ICTY is actively cooperating with murderous gangsters to further its agenda. This is akin to an international tribunal relying on Saddam's henchmen to prosecute U.S. soldiers or senior Nazis to indict prominent Allied military commanders like Gen. Dwight Eisenhower. This is an egregious abuse of power and warrants an independent investigation of Del Ponte's office. If there is an official U.S. Congressional probe of Del Ponte's activities on Capitol Hill (which seems more likely by the day), the Strbac affair will be a major component of the investigation.
More importantly, in an interview with Nedeljni Telegraf, a Belgrade newspaper, published on August 15, 2001, Strbac openly admitted that he has been pushing the indictment against Gen. Gotovina because it is an “outstanding opportunity” to re-establish the “Republika Srpska Krajina” by “legal means.” Strbac went on to state that the references to Tudjman in the Gotovina indictment are “especially important for the sake of history because all judgments of the ICTY will also at the same time be judgments against Tudjman. That is especially important for our history, but perhaps more importantly for our immediate future.”
“The indictment against Gotovina redefines history, or as Racan likes to say, 'criminalizes the Homeland War' . . . If the Hague proves the criminal responsibility of the commander of the most important Croatian military operation, then that commander will be a war criminal, and the action that he led will be a criminal operation,” Strbac said. “Finally, an operation that was criminal in its essence is not a ‘homeland war’ or a defensive war, but a criminal war and an aggressive war. Because of this, a state that was established on war crimes cannot continue to exist, but its makeup must be redefined. That offers an opportunity for us Serbs to establish through legal and legitimate means our right to renew the Republika Srpska Krajina.”
Belgrade's Anti-Croatian Strategy It is no accident that Serbia's largest and most popular political party, the Radical Party, recently sponsored a motion in Parliament demanding an end to Croatia's “ten-year occupation of the Serb Republic of Krajina.” The motion puts forward the revanchist claims that can also be found on the Radical Party's official Web site (http://www.srs.org.yu/aktuelno/memo.php) in its “memorandum on the legal and political impossibility of maintaining the occupation of the Republic of Serb Krajina.”
The Radicals maintain in their memorandum that Croatia is a state “founded on crime and occupation of the sovereign territory of the free Serbian people,” and that this “occupation is not legal but a temporary condition.” The memo insists “that the Serbian national question and preservation of the Serbs on their territories can be realized only by termination of that occupation and by assuring the security of and free decision-making to all who lived on that territory prior to the occupation of Serb Krajina.”
The memorandum reflects not only the ideological fanaticism and nationalist extremism of the Serbian Radical Party, but also the viewpoint of many within Belgrade's political class. Tomislav Nikolic, the leader of the Radicals and follower of the notorious Serbian fascist Vojislav Seselj, came within several percentage points of defeating Boris Tadic in Serbia's last presidential elections. If the country's economy continues to spiral downward, it is very likely that the Radicals may gain power. This will trigger another crisis with neighboring Croatia.
Moreover, the Radicals are not alone in their anti-Croatian racism. It is well to remember that the domestic anti-Milosevic opposition during his wars of aggression was fueled by many prominent leaders—Vojislav Kostunica, Vuk Draskovic, the late Prime Minister Zoran Djindic—who supported Belgrade's revanchist aims. They were not opposed to Milosevic's goal of creating a Great Serb empire that would stretch from the Danube to the Adriatic; rather, they were simply opposed to the means he employed in achieving that goal. Hence, it is very likely, if not inevitable, that in the future Belgrade will demand that Croatia's borders be altered and that its territories be annexed to Serbia.
In fact, this anti-Croatian strategy has been the linchpin of Belgrade's diplomacy since the creation of Yugoslavia in 1919. Serbia's political elite, whether on the Right or the Left, has consistently understood that the largest obstacle to Belgrade's dominance of the region is Croatia—especially, a strong and united Croatia. Therefore, throughout the 20th century Serbia's policy has been to prevent the emergence of an independent and viable Croatia. This can be seen in Belgrade's brutal repression of Croatian national aspirations during the 1920s and 1930s; the mass murder and expulsion of ethnic Croats by Draza Mihailovic's racist Chetniks; the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Croatian dissidents by Tito's Partisans and the savage persecution of the Croatian Catholic Church; and Milosevic's genocidal campaign to smash and dismember Croatia's fledgling democracy.
It is naive and wishful thinking, bordering on historical ignorance, for Zagreb's current political elite to imagine that Belgrade has abandoned its centuries-old expansionist ambitions. For the moment, the Serbs are focusing on internal problems (such as the final status of Kosovo and reviving Serbia's anemic economy). But this will not last indefinitely. “Nothing has been settled between us and the Croats,” blurted a political advisor to Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica during a heated discussion with me. “There will never be lasting peace in the Balkans until Croatia relinquishes its Serbian territories.”
This is why the Gotovina indictment is the most important issue facing Croatia today. It is the issue that will define what kind of nation Croatia will be, and what its future will hold. By sending Gen. Gotovina to The Hague, Zagreb will in effect be squandering all the gains and sacrifices made during the Homeland War. Gen. Gotovina's defeat will represent Croatia's unilateral surrender to Brussels, The Hague and ultimately, to Belgrade. Croatia's war for independence will be criminalized and Croatians will have abrogated their national sovereignty.
The country will be rendered impotent on the world stage; it will thereafter lack the constitutional and territorial legitimacy needed to be an effective, functioning nation-state. The country will be cast into a Balkan abyss: it will be part of a peripheral European perimeter characterized by constant ethnic conflict, shifting territorial boundaries, mass poverty, rampant corruption, the presence of international peacekeepers and dependence on foreign aid. Rather than securing Croatia's destiny within Europe, handing Gen. Gotovina into the fatal embrace of Del Ponte will ensure Zagreb's exclusion from the mainstream of European civilization.
Britain's Opposition to Croatia Moreover, the claim by Messrs. Sanader and Mesic that surrendering Gen. Gotovina will pave the way for Croatia to enter the EU is predicated on a false premise: the vain hope that Britain will drop its fierce opposition to Zagreb's membership bid. If the general is handed over to The Hague, the British Foreign Office will find another reason to block Croatia's entry. Already, London-based human rights groups and non-governmental organizations are demanding that Zagreb be denied membership until other issues—such as refugee resettlement, property compensation, minority rights and local courts convicting greater numbers of Croatian soldiers for alleged war crimes—are resolved.
The British Foreign Office is intractably opposed to Croatia joining the EU. Zagreb's entry ahead of Belgrade would undermine Britain's long-standing foreign policy goals in the Balkans. Since the late 19th century, London's primary objective has been to provide a strategic bulwark against Germany and Austria.
For Britain, this has meant strongly supporting Serbia at the expense of Croatia. The creation of an autocratic Yugoslavia dominated by Belgrade was primarily a British initiative. During World War II, Winston Churchill's government threw its full weight first behind the rapacious Chetniks, and later behind the genocidal Partisans. Immediately following the end of the Second World War, the British government played a pivotal role in sending over 250,000 Croats to be slaughtered by Tito's communists at Bleiburg and in ghastly death marches. The British Foreign Office led the opposition in Europe to Croatia's independence in 1991. London emerged as the Bosnian Serbs' staunchest ally in the West, consistently blocking any attempts to lift the U.N. arms embargo on the besieged Muslims and Croats in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Finally, it is the British who are most vociferously demanding that Gen. Gotovina be handed over to The Hague—to the point of having sent MI-6 agents into Croatia hoping to locate and capture him.
The British Foreign Office does not have Zagreb's best interests at heart when it insists that Gen. Gotovina be sent to The Hague. London's goal is to bolster Serbia's hegemonic ambitions, while weakening and undermining Croatia. Once Gen. Gotovina is found guilty and the Homeland War has been discredited, Britain will almost certainly reinforce Belgrade's demands for a new constitutional arrangement and, eventually, border changes in Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina. Just as in 1919, the British have set a trap: Croatia's political elites are rushing headlong into it.
Risks of EU Membership What is most disturbing about Croatia's current efforts to enter the EU is that Messrs. Sanader and Mesic are willing to make a pact with the devil. They are not only willing to blindly betray Croatia's constitutional sovereignty and its moral and legal basis as a nation, but they are also willing to sellout the country's vital economic interests. They are like drunken geese walking in the fog: they have no idea what they are doing or where they are going. Again, just as in 1919, much of Zagreb's political class is under the illusion that the country's long-term interest rests in joining a centralized, multinational superstate—only this time it is to be run from Brussels instead of Belgrade.
But even if Croatia can somehow be allowed to join the EU in the near future (a very doubtful prospect), the country’s bid is currently being negotiated on terms that will decimate Croatia's struggling middle class, workers, peasants and small businesses. Slavonia's agricultural sector will be wiped out by the massive and heavily subsidized agri-farms based in Germany, the Netherlands and France. Dalmatia's fishermen will face cut-throat competition from much more efficient and robust Italian and Spanish fishing boats. The country's pristine and beautiful coastline will be further exposed to being gobbled up by wealthy British, German, Austrian and Italian investors. Croatia's domestic market will be flooded with cheaper EU products, especially from Eastern Europe, causing even more businesses to go bankrupt and workers to lose jobs. The country's already very high debt level will only increase in the face of rising unemployment, a dwindling tax base and a growing strain on social services.
Croatia will be transformed into the Puerto Rico of Southeastern Europe: an impoverished economic and political colony of Brussels, whose main purpose is to serve as a tourist destination for vacationing Europeans. Yet as the bulk of the Croatian people suffer, the former communist, as well as HDZ elites will prosper. They will continue the Titoist-style cronyism and rampant corruption that is stunting the country's development. They will make sure to siphon off large chunks of targeted EU subsidies and foreign aid which will enable them to preserve their fancy cars, apartments and privileged status.
Ultimately, Croatia is not ready right now to enter the EU. In fact, this single-minded obsession by Messrs. Sanader and Mesic to have Zagreb join as quickly as possible and at any cost is a reflection of their utter bankruptcy as leaders. Their EU fast-track policy is a cheap substitute for the kind of real reforms Croatia needs to undertake if it is to become a healthy, prosperous and vibrant democracy. The current leaders are slick Balkan conmen masquerading as statesmen.
“Civilizations perish from suicide, not war,” wrote historian Arnold Toynbee. Croatia is on the verge of committing suicide. There is only one man who stands in the way of this path to destruction: General Ante Gotovina. The general is offering the last line of resistance to the disastrous policies of appeasement by both Messrs. Sanader and Mesic. By preventing Zagreb's bankrupt ruling class from turning the country into a vassal of The Hague and the EU, Gen. Gotovina is saving Croatia one more time.
He is in the great tradition of modern Croatian martyrs and statesmen—from Stjepan Radic to Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac to Franjo Tudjman—who suffered and were persecuted for the defense of their country, people and homeland. Through his perseverance, courage and sacrifice, Gen. Gotovina has become the rightful successor to Tudjman: a moral and political titan who towers above the rest. Every day that Gen. Gotovina eludes capture, he delivers another nail into the coffin of Del Ponte and her quislings in Zagreb. He must never surrender. He is carrying the destiny of his nation on his shoulders. He is Croatia's hero.
- Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a historian and contributor to the Commentary Pages of The Washington Times. This essay is adapted from his forthcoming book, “Fatal Embrace: The Croat-Serb Conflict in the 20th Century.” Mr. Kuhner would like to give special thanks to Ivana Arapovic for her invaluable research assistance in the writing of this article. Mr. Kuhner can be reached at jkuhner@riponsoc.org.
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TRUTH & JUSTICE
The View from Washington
The State Department’s War Against Croatia
By Jeffrey T. Kuhner
The U.S. State Department has finally shown its true face regarding its policy toward Croatia. And this face is an ugly and racist one.
Last week, Congressman Thaddeus McCotter, Michigan Republican, began to circulate an amendment that expresses the growing concern among Republicans on Capitol Hill regarding Carla Del Ponte’s assault on Croatia’s freedom of the press. In particular, the McCotter Amendment, as it was referred to, focused on Del Ponte’s recent indictments against Croatian journalists Ivica Marijacic, Stjepan Seselj, Domagoj Margetic and Markica Rebic. It was to be introduced in Congress and then attached to the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, which is the bill that funds the State Department’s initiatives toward international organizations like the ICTY. The amendment sought to “withhold U.S. contributions to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) until the tribunal dismisses all criminal charges against four journalists who have filed reports critical of the work of the ICTY.”
“The actions of the ICTY are a direct threat to the evolution of liberty in the former Yugoslavia, and we should be more determined in our efforts to defend a strong, free media as the ferment of every democratic process,” Congressman McCotter said in the press release sent out by his office.
The amendment, however, was strangled in its infancy by State Department operatives. Sources on Capitol Hill said that select members of the House International Relations Committee, which was overseeing the amendments process to the bill, were told by State Department officials to vote against the McCotter Amendment. Fearing that he didn’t have the necessary votes, Congressman McCotter declined to introduce his amendment—thereby, effectively killing it.
What is most stunning is not that the amendment failed (this happens all the time in Congress and is part of the messy legislative process). But State Department officials were willing to resort to openly bogus and racist arguments in order to dissuade congressional members from backing the amendment.
“What people from the State Department were telling people here in Congress was that these four Croatian journalists are not ‘real’ journalists,” said a source closely involved in the amendments process to the Foreign Relations Authorization bill.
“The State Department was also saying that journalists in Croatia are not ‘real’ journalists. It was frankly, unbelievable that they would say such things,” the source added. “But I guess it worked.”
Hence, according to the State Department’s logic, because Croatian journalists are not “real” journalists they are not entitled to basic democratic protections. Even for the State Department this is a new low. It is no secret that the State Department has been a staunch supporter of the ICTY. Yet by actively working to quash the McCotter Amendment the State Department is showing it is willing to go to any lengths, even if it means betraying deeply held American values and principles, to prop up Del Ponte—no matter how many unjust and anti-democratic indictments she puts forth.
The State Department’s actions reveal the deep-seated racism and amoral cynicism at the heart of its policies toward Croatia. The State Department actively defends the rights of journalists to be free from censorship and intimidation in the Middle East, Latin America and China. But when it comes to Croatia—and the peoples of the former Yugoslavia in general—the rights of journalists are not important. In fact, they are considered impediments to the State Department’s drive to impose its internationalist, neo-imperialist ambitions upon the region.
Since the late 1980s, following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the State Department’s approach to the region has been characterized by one over-riding objective: maintaining stability at all costs. This realpolitik amoralism values order above democracy, and regional stability—as expressed in supra-national states like Yugoslavia—over national self-determination.
This is why the State Department opposed the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1991, as was clearly dramatized on June 25 when then-U.S. Secretary of State James Baker pronounced that Washington “supports the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia”—giving Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic the green light to launch his invasions of Slovenia and Croatia. The State Department was extremely reluctant to recognize Croatia’s independence, despite the overwhelming evidence of Serb atrocities. Moreover, during the 1990s it was the State Department that actively supported maintaining the U.N. arms embargo on both Croatia and Bosnia—in the hopes of freezing Serb gains on the ground, which would compel Zagreb and Sarajevo to return into some kind of union with Belgrade. Finally, it was the State Department—along with the British Foreign Office—that ferociously opposed Operation Storm.
Even to this day, many within the State Department are anti-Croatia, hoping to reconstitute some kind of a loose Balkan union. Hence, this explains Foggy Bottom’s unflinching support for the ICTY, the indictment against General Ante Gotovina, and closer “regional integration.” Ultimately, the State Department believes that Croatians are essentially third-class citizens of Europe: they are not fit to have their own country and their democratic aspirations as a people are to be ignored. It is this racist and condescending attitude that explains why State Department operatives can, with a straight face, lobby members of Congress to not protect basic human rights and journalistic freedoms in Croatia.
The State Department’s war against Croatia will continue until the Croatian press stands up and speaks out against Washington’s injustices. Croatian journalists are real journalists. In fact, some like Ivica Marijacic and Josip Jovic (another columnist facing a possible indictment by Del Ponte for “contempt of the tribunal”) are outstanding journalists—not only by Croatian standards, but by the standards of any country in the West, including the United States.
The most common misperception in Croatia today is that the State Department is the official policymaker for the American government. It isn’t. The U.S. government is not a monolithic entity; it has numerous, competing centers of power, the State Department being only one of them. Former President Franjo Tudjman, his principled Defense Minister Gojko Susak and Gen. Gotovina understood this, which is why they circumvented the career bureaucrats at the State Department and made their pitch for Operation Storm to the Pentagon and the CIA. Their brilliant strategy worked, and Croatia secured its independence as a result.
It is now high time for the Croatian government and media to do something similar: to begin a concerted effort to expose the State Department’s backward, anti-democratic and disastrous policies to other American centers of power, such as Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill (who control and determine the State Department’s funding), the Pentagon, the National Security Council, the CIA and most importantly, the Bush administration. This public relations campaign should not only focus on Del Ponte’s assault upon Croatia’s democracy and freedom of the press, but also on the dangers of the Gotovina indictment, which aims to destroy Croatia’s foundations as an independent state and will establish the basis for a Greater Serbia.
Such a public relations campaign worked in 1995; and it can work again in 2005. But to do so Croatia’s elites must finally stand up and defend their democracy, their press freedoms, their Homeland War and ultimately, their country. If they do not, then they will eventually lose their country and control of its destiny, as has happened so often throughout Croatia’s long, tortured history, to foreign powers—whether it is the State Department, the British Foreign Office, The Hague or Brussels.
Croatia has been asleep for too long. It is time it arose from its slumber and seized its destiny as a free, proud and full member of the Western community of nations. This can only happen, however, if Croatians realize the immense value of their democratic freedoms and hard-earned national independence. They are gifts from God. They are not to be squandered or taken for granted. I only hope that Croatians are up to the challenge.
- Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a regular contributor to the Commentary Pages at The Washington Times.
Truth & Justice The View from Washington
Mesic’s Betrayal
By Jeffrey T. Kuhner
Croatian President Stipe Mesic has once again betrayed his country’s vital national interests. During a recent trip by U.S. Senator George Voinovich to Croatia, Mr. Mesic told the Ohio Republican that Zagreb still opposes Washington’s request for American troops to be exempt from prosecution before the International Criminal Court.
“The Croatian public will hardly accept to have citizens of another country being exempt from prosecution before an international court, while at the same time Croatia is required to extradite its own citizens” accused of war crimes to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Mr. Mesic told Mr. Voinovich.
Washington rightly opposes the ICC because it will expose U.S. military officials to politically motivated prosecutions. The international court is the vehicle by which the anti-American Left hopes to harass U.S. officials through frivolous indictments. The goal of the pro-ICC globalists is to use international legal institutions as a means of curtailing American foreign policy.
A good example of this was the 2002 decision by a Belgian court to begin proceedings against U.S. Gen. Tommy Franks on charges of “command responsibility” for alleged war crimes committed by coalition forces in Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld threatened the Belgian government with the removal of NATO headquarters from Brussels unless the country amended its self-anointed law of “universal jurisdiction.” Only after intense pressure did the Belgians finally agree.
This is why the Bush administration is determined to have countries around the world—including Croatia—sign the Article 98 treaty that would shield U.S. troops from being extradited to the ICC. So far, Washington has secured agreement from about 100 nations.
It is an open secret in Washington that Zagreb’s refusal to sign Article 98 is the principal obstacle to Croatia’s entry into NATO. By failing to support the United States on an issue of such importance, the Croatian government has helped to alienate senior members of the Bush administration.
Zagreb’s diplomatic establishment fails to understand that American perceptions of the world have been dramatically altered by the 9/11 attacks. Washington is no longer wedded to the realist policies of the post-Cold War era, saliently reflected during the 1990s by its initial refusal to support the break-up of Yugoslavia or to stop the Serbs’ war of aggression against Croatia and Bosnia. The Bush administration has now embraced an idealist foreign policy. The goal is to win the war against Islamic extremism by spreading democracy and liberal institutions not only in the Middle East, but throughout the globe. Washington is looking for reliable allies, whether it is in Asia, Africa, Latin America or the Balkans.
Croatia now has a unique opportunity to emerge as a key strategic partner of the United States. It can become the Israel of southeastern Europe, a pivotal democratic and pro-American ally in an unstable area of the world. Zagreb can act as a bulwark against both Serbian expansionism and resurgent Islam in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
For the first time in centuries, regional geopolitical forces are on the side of Croatia. Serbia remains mired in corruption, economic quagmire and the intractable problem of Kosovo. Macedonia and Albania are internally unstable. Bosnia-Hercegovina remains an ethnic and religious tinderbox. Slovenia and Montenegro are too small to project any meaningful influence in the region. This is why Zagreb’s political elite would be wise to seize the moment while it still exists. Serbia will not be weak forever. The longer Croatia dithers, the more likely and inevitable it is that Western powers will increasingly look to Belgrade in the future for leadership on issues of regional security—just as they did for much of the 20th century.
Ultimately, NATO entry should be the linchpin of Croatia’s geopolitical strategy. A formal military alliance with the West, especially the United States, would not only guarantee Zagreb’s security from any future attacks by its neighbors. It would transform Croatia into a military and strategic partner of America and Europe, enabling the country to serve as the leading force for democracy and stability in the region. Croatia would finally achieve what it has sought since its independence in 1991: to become a full and respected member of the European community of nations.
Hence, this begs the question: with so much at stake for his people and his country, why is Mr. Mesic so determined not to sign Article 98? Such a decision only perpetuates Croatia’s exclusion from NATO.
Perhaps it is because Mr. Mesic is more interested in ingratiating himself with his fellow internationalists in Brussels, Paris, Berlin and The Hague, than in securing Croatia’s long-term national interests. He has repeatedly shown himself to be a dogmatic, anti-American, anti-Croatian leftist, whose foreign policy is irresponsible and short-sighted. In the end, it is Croatia that will continue to pay the price for his intellectual and moral bankruptcy.
-Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a historian and regular contributor to the Commentary pages of The Washington Times. He is also writing a book, “Fatal Embrace: The Croat-Serb Conflict in the 20th century.”
HRVATSKI
HRVATSKI LIST, 12. svibnja 2005.
Istina i pravda/ Pogled iz Washingtona Piše: Jeffrey T. Kuhner Hrvatski predsjednik Stipe Mesić je ponovno izdao temeljne hrvatske nacionalne interese. G. Mesić rekao je američkom republikanskom senatoru iz Ohija Georgeu Voinovichu tijekom njegove nedavne posjete Hrvatskoj da se Zagreb i dalje protivi washingtonskom zahtjevu da američki vojnici budu izuzeti od mogućih optužba pred Međunarodnim kaznenim sudom. “Hrvatska javnost ne može prihvatiti izuzeće građana druge države od tužba pred međunarodnim sudom, dok se istodobno od Hrvatske traži izručenje njenih građana“, optuženih pred Haaškim sudom, rekao je Mesić Voinovichu. Washington se opravdano protivi Međunarodnom kaznenom sudu, koji hoće izložiti američke časnike politički motiviranim optužnicama. Taj sud je sredstvo kojim protuamerička ljevica pokušava prozirnim optužbama progoniti američke vojne dužnosnike. Cilj ovih globalista je uporaba međunarodnih sudskih ustanova kao sredstva ometanja američke vanjske politike. Dobar primjer toga je odluka jednog belgijskog suda iz 2002. godine o podizanju optužnice protiv američkog generala Tommyja Franksa zbog „zapovjedne odgovornosti“ za navodne ratne zločine koalicijskih snaga u Iraku. Američki ministar obrane Donald Rumsfeld zaprijetio je belgijskoj vladi da će premjestiti NATO-ov stožer iz Bruxellesa ako ona ne promijeni taj svoj samoproglašeni zakon o “univerzalnoj jurisdikciji“. Belgijanci su konačno pristali tek nakon snažnog pritiska SAD-a. Upravo stoga Bushova vlada ustrajava na tome da sve države na svijetu, pa tako i Hrvatska, potpišu sporazum o Članku 98. koji bi štitio američke vojnike od izručenja međunarodnom sudu. Washington je do sada osigurao pristanak oko 100 država. Javna je tajna u Washingtonu da je hrvatsko odbijanje potpisivanja Članka 98. glavna prepreka njenom ulasku u NATO. Uskraćivanjem potpore SAD-u o tako važnom pitanju hrvatska vlada je utjecala na nesklonost viših dužnosnika Bushove vlade. Vrh hrvatske diplomacije ne shvaća da su teroristički napadi na Svjetski trgovinski centar iz temelja promijenili američki odnos prema svijetu. Washington više ne pristaje uz realističku politiku razdoblja nakon hladnog rata, koja se uočljivo iskazala tijekom devedesetih godina odbijanjem potpore raspadu Jugoslavije ili pak zaustavljanju srpske agresije na Hrvatsku i Bosnu i Hercegovinu. Bushova vlada danas provodi idealističku vanjsku politiku. Njen je cilj pobjeda u ratu protiv islamskog ekstremizma širenjem demokracije i liberalnih zasada, ne samo na Bliskom istoku, već i u cijelom svijetu. Washington traži pouzdane saveznike, bilo to u Aziji, Africi, Latinskoj Americi ili na Balkanu. Hrvatska danas ima jedinstvenu priliku postati ključnim strateškim suradnikom SAD-a. Ona može postati Izraelom jugoistočne Europe, glavnim demokratskim američkim saveznikom u ovom nemirnom dijelu svijeta. Zagreb može biti preprekom srpskom ekspanzionizmu i sve jačem islamu u Bosni i Hercegovini. Prvi put u nizu stoljeća regionalne geopolitičke sile na hrvatskoj su strani. Srbija je trajno ogrezla u korupciji, gospodarskom rasulu i nerješivom kosovskom problemu. Makedonija i Albanija unutrašnjopolitički su nestabilne. Bosna i Hercegovina je i dalje etnička i vjerska bačva baruta. Slovenija i Crna Gora su premalene za bilo kakav značajniji upliv u ovoj regiji. I stoga bi zagrebačkoj političkoj eliti bilo pametno iskoristiti priliku dok je još ima. Srbija, naime, ne će zauvijek biti slaba. Što dulje Hrvatska oklijeva, to će se vjerojatnije i neumitnije zapadne sile ubuduće okretati Beogradu kao središtu u stvarima regionalne sigurnosti – baš kao i tijekom većeg dijela 20. stoljeća. I konačno, ulazak u NATO trebao bi biti okosnicom hrvatske geopolitičke strategije. Formalni vojni savez sa Zapadom, posebno sa SAD-om, ne bi samo jamčio Hrvatskoj sigurnost od budućih napada svojih susjeda. On bi pretvorio Hrvatsku u američkog i europskog vojnog i strateškog saveznika, što bi joj omogućilo položaj vodeće snage demokracije i stabilnosti u ovoj regiji. Hrvatska bi konačno postala ono čemu je težila još od stjecanja nezavisnosti 1991. godine: punopravan i uvažen pripadnik europske zajednice naroda. Pitanje je stoga: ako je riječ o tolikom ulogu za narod i zemlju, zašto g. Mesić tako odlučno odbija potpisati Članak 98. ? Ta odluka trajno priječi hrvatski put u NATO. Možda je razlog u tome što se on više želi svidjeti svojim internacionalističkim prijateljima u Bruxellesu, Parizu, Berlinu i Haagu, nego osigurati hrvatske dugoročne nacionalne probitke. On se u brojnim prilikama iskazao kao zadrti antiamerički i antihrvatski ljevičar, čija je vanjska politika neodgovorna i kratkovidna. Ali na kraju Hrvatska će platiti – kao što plaća i danas – njegov intelektualni i moralni brodolom.
Jeffrey T. Kuhner je povjesničar i stalni komentator Washington Timesa. Trenutno piše knjigu “Smrtonosni zagrljaj: hrvatsko-srpski sukob u 20. stoljeću“.
_______________ HRVATSKI LIST, MAY 5, 2005
Truth & Justice The View from Washington
(hrvatski)
By Jeffrey T. Kuhner |