mostly unedited texts.... just my quick thoughts...

Following the arrest of the greatest Croatian hero ever, General Ante Gotovina:

Or, rationalizing over the irrational, or for the historical record: This is how it gets enough

I read, "Some were claiming that the (Catholic) Church was hiding Gotovina," Prime Minister Ivo Sanader told national television on Monday in a reference to previous accusations of the UN court chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte.  "An apology should be made to all those -- from the Vatican to Franciscans in both Croatia and Bosnia but also to us (Zagreb) -- who were claiming all the time that the general was not in Croatia," he said without elaborating." (AFP, Dec 12)

He asks for an apology instead of giving the one to all of us, provided that his government – but also President’s office and media (Nacional in particular), all of them – admit, in this way or another, their role in the greatest betrayal in recent Croatian history:

“…The peaceful arrest was conducted by Spanish police, in cooperation with Croatian authorities. …The Croatian Government issued a press release immediately after being officially informed by the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague (ICTY), Carla Del Ponte of General Gotovina’s arrest on the Canary Islands: “Gotovina’s arrest in Spain represents an affirmation of the reliability of the assertions made by the Republic of Croatia that he was not within the reach of the Croatian authorities nor was he on Croatian territory. The Government’s statement also stressed that the credibility of the Republic of Croatia and all institutions of the Croatian State, as well as of its full co-operation with the Hague Tribunal, are hereby confirmed.” “All those who trusted and supported us in times when Croatia’s efforts to co-operate with the Hague Tribunal were being questioned, are now being proven right. [!] It has now become evident that such doubts were unfounded,” read a portion of the press release….Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović commented on the arrest in Brussels, at a meeting of NATO’s Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council: “This proves the credibility of the Croatian government and its institutions in the implementation of the Action Plan… The arrest also proves that information provided by relevant Croatian services were true,” said the foreign minister.” (Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in the US - WEEKLY BULLETIN, Dec 8)

Ivo Pukanic’s weekly magazine Nacional, however, blames those who advised the general that he does not surrender to the political court in The Hague. What's the difference? Were the false charges withdrawn? Who made mistake is already made clear from the bogus charges against the General and Croatia. Gotovina, says Pukanic, "negotiated with the tribunal in The Hague for months," which was known to the "President of Republic of Croatia Stjepan Mesic, Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, the main state’s attorney Mladen Bajić and Ivo Pukanić", adding that “Luka Mišetić and Mladen Ivanović participated in person in the negotiations with Carla del Ponte in September, because they wanted to prevent the arrest” – and on December 1, Misetic “sent a non-paper to Carla Del Ponte regarding the terms of his surrender. The general refused to surrender, which Pukanic (close Mesic’s friend) refuses to explain, except that he promotes his magazine – he is still amassing the fortunes on General’s tragic fate. I wish to hear no more about him or his magazine. Croatian General and his former Foreign Legion commander Ante Roso stated that, according to what he knew about Gen Ante Gotovina, he was not a commercialist and would not be making deals over his capture.

All in all, this is how it gets enough. They (Government/HDZ) ask for an apology but no apology for so wrongly accused man and a horribly wrong indictment against both him and Croatia. That's called a 'vision' and 'providence'? Morality?

Then Croatian media just reported he looked very well although he was clearly a different man over the last few days for all those who saw the widely circulated video of his arrest in Spain – now locked in a tiny cell not far from Milosevic, in even a worse condition than Milosevic himself who is a war criminal responsible for a quarter of million dead, and whom Gen Gotovina, with the US assistance, defeated. Now tell me about justice in Europe.

The report also said the General was "content (!) for he was read his indictment although he didn't ask for that.” The point of fact is that he said “no” when he was asked if he wished to be read it all over. He previously stated he understood all of it (and he pleaded not guilty). But he's all “pleased” to be there and listen to those horrible lies against him, over and over again, according to the Croatian reports. Now tell me about pleasures in Europe. Ghostly.

And the same Croatian government will “defend” him now, they claim as well as the media in their control. This hasn’t deserved more comment.

Maybe even the General doesn’t want me to make any. But my personal feeling is that they shall be "happy" and "content" or “pleased” in this way themselves. I believe that everyone has a conscience and has to walk the streets with it. Clean or unclean.

The government should have defended him from the false charges so long ago; on the contrary, it followed up on all the lies against him, spread so many, and even ordered the media to reiterate them, to which it didn’t allow to write anything in his favour. I don’t wish to see the next episode of their hypocrisy, and into what they'll disguise themselves again. Defenders? It's such a dirty game. Let it be for those who still buy it.

The General may forgive them, but Croatia will not.

So I say: Adieu mes “amis” Croates. (Except for some true ones, a few).

Why am I still saying something here… Is it just to make sure I’m not dreaming, or that I am… Is it to believe the unbelievable, or to rationalize over the irrational. It's such a great treason... such injustice.

I believe the General is the most decent, civilized and honest man who has ever stepped in The Hague. I wish to make sure I told those who deceived him a Good Bye, an adieu, a zbogom. Whoever they may be.

It is how it gets really enough. An apology...? By whom and to whom? Although I could say a million stories about this, about all these past 4 years, past 15 years… , about our past. … It’s past. The neo-communist mafia in Croatia deserves no mention.

I wouldn’t know what happened to the General – who returned to Croatia with the same dream we all had – has been so wrong unless I have met some real and fake patriots, real and fake heroes, true and false friends, - and learned in a hard way to distinguish between right and wrong. False and true. But one is paying the price of all lies and deceptions in and around Croatia, in the prison of the Hague. That’s why I say adieu to Croatia – it didn’t deserve him. And he is paying the price even for that.

Your Canadian VoC Editor/Webmaster also says to those from the Church who asked me once a long ago to write about coming back to my homeland (voila, I did once) – I did return now. And for good. With all my being, with all my heart. Although, it is not Croatia, it is not Bosnia, it is Canada.  And thanks God for that – so that I can preserve my faith in justice. I wouldn’t be able to live in the country that betrays its greatest heroes and patriots and lives on such a falsehood. I could never accept that it surrenders to such false and indeed hideous accusations against any of its citizens so that some false powers wipe it out, as well as its dignity, from the face of the earth. I can no longer be part of it. (I said this in 2000 when I left Croatia, Mesic's and Racan's regime, but that was a physical departure only). So what’s the sacrifice for? Why still sacrifice people, even Croatia's best ones, and for what?

And guess what, no one will arrests me or indict me here for how I feel about the Croatian government, Croatian president, Croatian media, and The Hague, and for what I write here, unlike in Croatia, although, although HDZ threatened me lately with even this! Should now Montreal police protect Croatian Prime Minister from Croatians living in Montreal? For he might end up now, indeed, as one of the worst dictators the world has seen, but it's his reality that every honest person denounces. 

When Ante Nobilo (a lawyer known from the infamous case against Tihomir Blaskic, and his prosecutions of Croatians in communist times) said that Sanader/HDZ had more   maneuvering space and that they could extradite Croatian General without some fierce opposition, I knew (from other governmental reports, statements, actions and habits, as well) he might be right, but my warnings have met with the threats by HDZ. It is, unfortunately, obvious why. The worst came true.

["Depuis que le Premier ministre a pris ses fonctions, huit inculpés croates et bosno-croates ont pris des allers simples pour La Haye. Alors que Racan n'en avait livré aucun. «Il était vulnérable aux attaques de la droite, souligne Me Ante Nobilo, avocat à Zagreb. A la tête du HDZ, Sanader a davantage de marge de manœuvre." (L'Express du 21/06/2004).

Same about Pukanic/Nacional; the neo-communist mafia is just too strong against the people with a true sense of justice in Europe. People look to appease them, but they never get enough of it. It costs lives. And still…

It is why these pages are being pretty quiet lately. What I just said was in the air all this time, a cause of great concern and a lost battle.

It is why I am a bit emotional here – something HDZ approaches me whenever I oppose their hypocrisy, and even when I write cold facts. Because some people among them have reason to fear our emotions. They have none. (Cold bastards, pardon my language, as if it were just about emotions, they're the greatest traitors in the modern history of Croatia!). I’m just a human being, and my feelings about deep corruption of some public figures in Croatia, unfortunately, proved to be right, they are the traitors. They care just about the money and their positions. Their union of unjust dictators and dangerous thieves - in communism everything they were doing was "legal" - cannot and will not last... How anyone can respect them in the world? I wish no longer to identify with them nor those who still choose them for their masters. Their “defenders”. I don't wish to see the continuation of this farce. Prove me wrong...

May God protect General Ante Gotovina who's left with a little choice now whatsoever. He appreciated every human life, he saved so many; may God save his as well.

Your Canadian.

Voiceofcroatia.net

P.S. It's about living a decent life, being human, honest... above all, you ignorant fools who betrayed him.

December 12, 2005.

VOICEOFCROATIA.NET, MARCH 17, 2005.

THE EU SHOULD SHELL OUT THE MONEY

Reparations

By Ivana Arapović

(Hrvatska inacica teksta)

Since the war of Croatian people against Milosevic’s genocidal rule was ended in 1995, or be it 1998 like the government’s fledgling “liberators” love to say in recent years, Croatia has been pushed “into Europe” by the ones, and “out of Europe” by the others, on her own account or by coercion.

Croatian politics, defined as “Croatia is going into Europe”, helas, from Europe, have never been so faceless as today, after a slap in the face by the EU’s postponement of membership talks with Croatia. With justice, will it be said by those who, even 10 years after the war, only dream of going back to their homes.

Once we’re in our homes, on our own, the whole world is “Europe” to us – or “America” if you like.  

Croatian politicians went pretty mute. It’s little believed that they failed because of General Ante Gotovina. Even some world’s mainstream media noted that Gen Gotovina is no more than a pretext. He is neither an elected leader in Croatia nor a visible public figure. (FT, March 10, 2005.). Indeed, when he expressed his disagreement with the criminalisation of the Homeland war as the Croatian Army general on active duty, subsequently retired, Gen Gotovina proved that he had no careerist aims. He also said he would never be bored. Certainly not.

Even the “historical” partnership with Germany, used for half a century to tar the Croats (WW2) has been watered down. The official Berlin, too, drew in his horns before those of the Prosecutor of the Tribunal in The Hague. Hence, Germany also found Gotovina to be a pretext for dwindling her support for the EU membership talks with Croatia, soon to be disclaimed. (FT, March 10, 2005.; CAA, March 18, 2005). Thank God.

In fact, General Ante Gotovina, the hero of  the Homeland war, is a pretext for countless things. Falsely indicted, he’s a pretext for the non-payment of war reparations to Croatia, but also for the Croats’ position in Bosnia and Herzegovina where they’re squashed in the “federation” so that one half is given to the Serbs, under Serbia’s influence, and the second half to Lord Paddy Ashdown who proclaimed himself to be the greatest colonial power in the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This is when Greater-Serbia aspirations towards Croatia come in on again. (TOL, March 17, 2005)

He’s also a pretext for the EU member states’ international obligations breach in the case of Croatia’s negotiations, given that political decisions and the fate of the whole country, Croatia, are handed down to the Chief Prosecutor of the Tribunal in The Hague, Carla Del Ponte. (CAA, March 3, 2005)

An epidemic of this pretext is spreading on some NATO representatives, too, through the ranks of those who publicly labelled 1999 NATO’s operations of bombing Serbia and Montenegro as “aggression.”  (VoC, March 14, 2005.) Thus Canadian Senator Nolin recently said there would be no NATO membership talks so long as General Ante Gotovina is free. (SD, March 13, 2005)    

Nice. What will the Croats do now? We better ask what the Croatian government will do.

Voila, a variety of cartoons and video games about the hunt for Gotovina has been put in an appearance, so “shoot” whom you can. For instance, Video NovaTV  makes fun of  the Parliament  members buzzing helplessly in the Parliament – “Where are you Ante,” while Crocafe plays the Den Haag Saloon shooting game – but there’s no president Mesic to “have coffee” with his crowd.

Racan and Sanader, hit by the decisions in Europe, found themselves endangered and withdrew extra money from the state budget for their personal protection! (Hina, March 17, 2005)  The EU should shell out the money for them! Racan and Sanader act as if the whole EU (and Croatia) set on them to get them and not the "fugitive." Who knows…

Actually, Racan and Sanader are allegedly threatened by no one less than Gen Gotovina’s brother!  Obviously, they may be playing games excessively. Now when it became apparent that they wasted their mandates and Croatia’s state budget in Europe, spending little for Croatia proper, the POA (Croatian counter-intelligence agency) still has something to justify their hopeless politics and expenditures.

Their games are too expensive. The bogus indictment of Gen Gotovina has been used for the war crime reparations campaign by some EU bureaucrats. (Stratfor, March 15, 2005)

When Britain, Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden promote such “human rights” in which Croatia, too, must give an innocent “client” to the Prosecutors in The Hague, and pay reparations for war crimes instead of Serbia, a new destruction, material and human, might follow. Soon, Croatia might become “aggressor” – it won’t be the first time –, exactly like NATO for 1999 operations, and, often, the Americans, for their 1995 assistance in Croatian Operation Storm led by Gen Ante Gotovina (Sector South). 

The ones want to bring Croatia “into Europe,” the others want to block her, while, in reality, both are expelling the Croats from Europe. Not many returned to their homes in Croatia or Bosnia and Herzegovina – yes, in Europe.

The Croats are once again guilty of everything, particularly Milosevic’s wars and his defeat. Therefore, war crimes reparations would be paid to Serbia and not Croatia, while reparations for unjust hunt for Gen Gotovina for almost 4 years are not to be mentioned.

Without Gotovina, how would the politicians and bureaucrats justify their anti-Croatian politics, which may, once again, cost dear not only Croatia but also the international community, like in the last war? It seems that the EU should pay for all reparations!  Therefore, this warning is composed gratis.

Hrvatska inacica teksta

VOICEOFCROATIA.NET, NOVEMBER 26, 2004

Politics aside, the ICTY

"One no longer dares to seem what one really is;

and in this perpetual constraint,

the men who make up this herd we call society will,

if placed in the same circumstances,

do all the same things unless stronger motives deter them.

Thus no one will ever really know those with whom he is dealing.

Hence in order to know one's friend,

it would be necessary to wait for critical occasions,

that is, to wait until it is too late,

since it is for these very occasions

that it would have been essential to know him."

 Jean-Jacques Rousseau  

When the participants of Dec 9 2003 Western Balkans Forum meeting pledged to "full and unequivocal co-operation with the ICTY, in particular with regard to the transfer to The Hague of indictees still at large and access to documents and witnesses," have they also hideously  pledged to remain silent over Carla Del Ponte’s conflicted indictments and statements?

   Have they agreed to her judicial clench on Croatia’s membership in the European Union, and also on the property which is to be seized not only from those she accused but also from those for whom she supposes that they support them, regardless of her wanting in credibility?

   Isn’t it a purely political thing, and a biased one, that Carla Del Ponte’s report on Croatia’s cooperation with the ICTY should determine Croatia’s path to the EU?

   Politics aside, the main problem with the ICTY’s reports is in that they’re sketching isometric accusations against General Ante Gotovina who assumed the command responsibility of liberating Croatian territory, from 1991 conclusive with 1995 Operation Storm, and his direct opponents, Milosevic’s mains fortes Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, who had held it occupied by means of their systematic, genocidal policies.

   They drive nearly out of their head all those who attempt to make any sense of their indictments and official statements as regards the Croats, their collaborators not being exempted here.

A make-believe of joining the EU…

Carla Del Ponte’s whining again about Croatia’s failure to locate General Ante Gotovina, in her report to the UN Security Council that should hinder Croatia-EU accession talks.

   To my mind, this story is all too familiar, since 1997 when the terms for Croatia’s forcible Balkan integrations with a false promise of entering the EU and NATO led Croatia into serial political deadlocks.

   We should only remember Erhard Busek who acted such whining regarding Croatia’s joining the SECI, largely affected through today’s Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) that Racan’s government signed in 2001, under extremely unfair terms for Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The regional unions with less advanced or instable nations have always been damaging for the advanced countries, which is why the EU probes the new member states indefinitely. Not to mention the unions with the hostile countries that Serbia yet has been in relation to Croatia, like it was at the time of the SECI negotiations.

   Then, Mr. Racan’s trustee Number One, Mr. Granic, did his best to follow up on the ICTY’s requests, but it was never enough – he had to resign, deceived, his EU dream put down together with all his efforts to bring Serbia up to Croatia's level or rather Croatia down to Serbia's level.  Now, his apprentice, in function of Croatian Prime Minister, Mr. Sanader, still more eager to join the EU, went eastward, to approach Belgrade, and neither did he do enough to qualify for the EU membership. How could he!?

   It all comes down to packing Croatia into a Balkan union with an unstable, hostile country, that Serbia was and still is, as if the Croats were responsible for what the Serbs did, for their four aggression wars that they lost, and as if the Croats must bail them out now for it. What did Serbia  do to deserve this? Generally, they show little remorse for Milosevic's, Karadzic's or Mladic's war atrocities. They should work their way out from their rogue era to democracy, without hanging on their neighbors again.

   With Carla Del Ponte’s statement, the art of justifying their hounds against Croatia finds its dip.  She goes as far as to say: “We are seriously worried that the failure to arrest Gotovina may influence the arresting of Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić, said Del Ponte.” (Index.hr, Nov 23, 2004)

   Only nine months earlier, on Feb 11, 2004, she had “credible information” that "the two most wanted fugitives from the Balkan wars are hiding in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia-Montenegro.” “Carla Del Ponte said investigators have ‘credible information’ that Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his general, Ratko Mladic, are in the city. (“Prosecutor: Karadzic hiding in Belgrade,” AP/CANOE, Feb 11, 2004)

   Why then the EU commands and applauds Mr. Sanader’s friendly missions to Belgrade? After he had visited Belgrade, on Nov 15, 2004, so to “strengthen Zagreb's ties with Belgrade” and win the favor of the EU, two extremist Serb incidents escalated in Croatia: the Serbian offensive intrusion into Croatian territorial waters during the commemoration of the destruction of Vukovar, on Nov. 18, 2004; and the incident with the Serbian students celebrating WWII Serbian fascist leader, a notorious Chetnik, Draza Mihajlovic, in the middle of Croatia’s capital, on Nov. 20, 2004.

   Croatia should beware of joining the EU as long as it's contingent upon the ICTY's Chief Prosecutor's policy.  By all means, the ICTY is giving wrong directions to decriminalization, stability and progress in the region. They encourage the new crimes from the Serbian end by their equalizing distribution of the guilt for 1991-1995 war, which only brings about one and the same conflict. They made no pledge that Serbia – the Serb-dominated Yugoslav Army and their paramilitary groups such as the Chetniks – wouldn't do all the same things in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Prime Minister Sanader defends himself, and himself only, against the accusations

The Chief Prosecutor takes on the Croatian Government now: She accused it of protecting General Ante Gotovina in Croatia and goes about freezing the property of all his alleged supporters.

  General Ante Gotovina’s supporters, wherever they are, must be wide-smiling to Mr. Sanader who got what he deserved. No one understands him any more, not even Carla Del Ponte to whom he pledged “full and unequivocal co-operation.”

   But neither of them has ever invited the ICTY’s prosecutors to prove the wrong and harmful accusations against Croatia and its Homeland War through the case of Gen Ante Gotovina, which are in the essence of the problem with the ICTY.

   The basis of Croatian freedom cannot be investigated, which is rooted in the Homeland War. Justice and freedom are inseparable.

Who will do enough, unless Belgrade assists them again?

But, the last time Mr. Sanader invited an international body to prove their accusations against his government's incompetence to locate and arrest Gen Ante Gotovina – it resulted in MI6 spying on Croatian citizens.

  What else to expect from a prime minister and his diplomacy, whose party promotes a picture with the shine of Serbian weapons, airing a wrong signal, while he betrays his own country’s military force. Mr Sanader has been emailed an open letter asking him about the last time he took a high, radiant picture with the Croatian Army but he hasn’t had an answer, of course.

   Hence we must ask if Carla Del Ponte, the UN and the EU, are expecting from the Croatian Government an encore of pointing the Serbian weaponry to Croatia? Will then be enough what they’re doing in view of full cooperation with the ICTY, and with all others who demand from Croatia what they have never allowed in their own countries.

Whose servants are they now;  what did they do in the 1991-1995 Homeland War?

The world politics have changed. Croatia may have more true friends in the West, who now recognize the truth regarding any stage of Croatian struggles for freedom, but the communist mind-sets, used to prosecutions of the Croats, have not changed. They had their masters in Belgrade; now they found them in Carla Del Ponte who guides them eastward again. Maybe that's where they feel at ease with their politics.  

   It’s high time Croatian politicians proved they were serving Croatia and Croatian people above all, and not Carla Del Ponte or Belgrade. They’re but public servants, should they be reminded; but whose servants are they and what’s their “legal” share in so corrupt justice and politics, that’s what they need to answer to the Croatian public.

   Next question is: What did they, in the current Croatian Government, the UN and the EU, do in the 1991-1995 war to defend Croatia and Croatian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina against the Serbian aggression?

Ivana Arapovic

VOICEOFCROATIA.NET, OCTOBER 28 2004

The ICTY fire is gonna get even hotter yet

The former offices of the prosecutors of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and UN Peace Mission to Croatia (SFOR), at the Ilica and Selska cesta intersection in Zagreb, caught fire on Tuesday, October 26 2004. The 1993 Wall of Pain, erected as most of war-torn Croatia and Bosnia were in flame, by mothers and relatives of killed and missing Croatian soldiers and civilians, was also ablaze and partly destroyed. The building, of which now little remains, was under ongoing reconstruction, designed to situate the Croatian Ministry of Justice whose head is Minister Vesna Škare Ožbolt. The circumstances of the justice building’s Tuesday morning inferno haven’t been established this far.

   It coincided with a firestorm of controversies regarding the unrestrained power of the Chief Prosecutor of the ICTY Carla del Ponte, which is such that her decisions may turn down the political leaders or parties in Croatia, Bosnia or Serbia; revise, change or reverse their course of history; initiate the upheavals and riots by equalizing distribution of the punishments for the aggressor and victim with total disregard to justice, or by neglecting to prosecute the true criminals.  With prosecution checking and review mechanism in hand of a sullen person of Carla Del Ponte, with no democratically coined body of prosecutors in effect, the court doesn't reflect  Western standards and values. The international community, for a second time, sits back and watches.

   The Ripon Society’s editor Jeffrey T. Kuhner reported in The Washington Times of October 24 on how the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton identified a security threat in the Balkans emerging from this dubious ICTY’s conduct. The article has attained a thunderous transatlantic echo, having pointed that the ICTY’s war crime trials and responsibility need to be turned back on the countries concerned, to the “people who have to live with the decisions they make," thus announcing Carla Del Ponte’s downfall.

   The Washington Times’s article generated convivial debate in Serbia, quickly opposed by the US Embassy in Belgrade. Like only Deputy Spokesman of the US State Department Adam Ereli, they seem to prefer keeping their faith in the ICTY, ignoring or embracing its falsehood and the fact that the ICTY was initiated greatly on account of George Soros’s funding and his supply of scarce, philanthropic, often unqualified personnel, which might had well set a precedent for Carla Del Ponte’s share in their today’s messianic roles they both aspire to.

   In Croatia, former US Ambassador to Croatia William Montgomery embraced the idea of shifting the trials, politicized as they are, to the national, domestic courts, showing the ICTY’s dysfunctional role in the region through the fate of Zoran Djindjic, the late Prime Minister of Serbia who “was killed solely because of the ICTY.” Mr Montgomery thrust so many words into an interview for Zagreb’s Jutarnji List of October 16 – and yet the essential point was missed:  justice and fairness. The courts are about justice, aren't they, which is not the same thing as enforcing an unfair equalization of the guilt and remorse. Still, he argues, “regardless of the flaws of the procedure – and perhaps the unfairness of some aspects of it – the only choice now for the governments of the region is to fully comply with the indictments.” Carla Del Ponte would have done it with gusto only if that unfair practice could ever be feasible or viable.

   Mind you, the ICTY’s indictment of Croatian hero General Ante Gotovina is rudely unfair and unjust towards him and Croatia, and no one can live with it at peace, be it implemented through either the ICTY's or Croatian legal institutions.

   Only Croatian government and its media vanished into a passivity, ignorance or neutrality regarding the entire judicial firework at a global scale, having humbly capitulated before the ICTY and EU, couching in different theatrical terms the offerings of the Croatian national treasures, along with any Croatian war-time liberator whom Carla Del Ponte picks from Croatia or Bosnia and Herzegovina, without asking or bringing any good in return  –  as if they came out of Marulic’s Judith and faced the savage Holopherne: La pitié! They submit to every ICTY's request so that  their poor positions survive, unharmed. They’ve been so totally deaf after the explosion of an international debate over the Washington Times report. Only Croatian Diaspora’s websites timely brought it to the attention of the pro-Croatian lobby at home and worldwide, with AnteGotovina.com.

   But isn’t it stupendous how crushed into muteness has also been a democratic flame of: mass demonstrations that blocked Zagreb-Split public road in 2000; followed by 12 signatures of the Croatian generals (including Gen Ante Gotovina), who opposed the revision and incrimination of the defensive Homeland war; four Racan’s ministers resigning in protest of Gotovina and Ademi’s indictment in July 2001; the war veterans’ petition with 400,000 signatures appealing for the protection of the dignity and the truth of the Homeland war; and finally, multiple records of wholly erroneous proceedings within the ICTY. Now, almost all democratic instruments having been exhausted in Croatia, there is little faith in peaceful setting of the ICTY matter. The fire is going to get even hotter yet.

   If an inlet for the peace will be opened and the harm caused by the ICTY extinguished, the balance in the region shall be restored to its August 1995 settings. This shouldn’t be resumed by an extra costly war that would efface certain positive developments achieved since the 1995 Operation Storm. Mr. Bolton’s expert risk assessment is mighty countfull.

   Ivana Arapovic

It is rather the terrorist appetites. According to a recent editorial in The Washington Times, they may feed jihad's motives:

"Terrorists hate everything this alliance stands for," President Bush said. What about the Hague Tribunal? Who will bear the responsibility for calling the terror upon the region over and over. The face of Slobodan Milosevic fades away from the Tribunal, while it asks the submission of the same victims whom he already terrorized throughout Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina -- now, the green light given to the Islamic terrorists instead of him. (IA)

Jutarnji List 16 October 2004

The ICTY And Political Instability

William Montgomery

A very large portion of my work as U.S. Ambassador to Croatia and then to Serbia and Montenegro over the past six years was to support vigorously the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). More accurately, to persuade, convince, encourage and pressure the governments of Croatia and Serbia to either transfer indicted war criminals to The Hague or convince those indictees to surrender to that institution. Particularly for a large percentage of the American non-governmental organizations and the small but influential number of Congressional staffers who have followed events in this region for more than a decade, this was - and is - the ultimate litmus test of the progress governments in the region are making in the process of democratic transition. It was not quite as black and white for either the Clinton and Bush administrations, but it unquestionably was an absolutely critical issue.

I recall discussing the issue of war criminals with President Izetbegovic in Bosnia in 1996. I asked him how many war criminals were in Bosnia from all sides and he thought for a few seconds and then replied that he believed that there were about 10,000. I could not begin to guess the total for the whole former Yugoslavia. I do know that I have met literally thousands of their victims all over this region of every ethnicity and that they all cry out for justice. And I also know that only an extremely small percentage of these criminals will ever face any sort of accounting for the atrocities they committed.

With that in mind, the ICTY is an incredibly important institution and the primary vehicle to see that at least some justice is done. The International Community has invested thus far over one billion (yes, ONE BILLION) dollars for the work of ICTY and has also used its resources to capture indictees and significant amounts of political capital with the governments of the region to obtain cooperation. But as I sit in Cavtat and think about events of the past several years, I keep coming back to ICTY as an area where all of us: regional governments, ICTY itself, and the international community could have done a far better job. Because the initial promise of ICTY (and one of its mandated goals) to help bring about reconciliation has not been fulfilled and instead it has become a significant factor of instability in a region badly in need of the opposite.

It is not accurate to say that Zoran Djindjic, the late Prime Minister of Serbia, was killed solely because of the ICTY. But it is fair to say that his willingness to arrest Milosevic and others and transfer them to The Hague was a significant factor leading to his assassination. While the criminal gang that carried out his killing was motivated in large part because they believed he was about to move decisively against them, it is a fact that the actual triggerman in his confession said that he did it because they told him that "he was going to send all of us to the Hague." Moreover, the rebellion of the Red Berets in November 2001 was set off by their rage at having unknowingly apprehended two Hague indictees at the order of the government. That rebellion, which threatened the democratic government of Serbia far more than most people realized, was quelled only when Djindjic was forced to make damaging concessions to Legija and others. Concessions that came back to haunt him and threatened the stability of the country and its path to democratic transition.

Zoran knew well the dangers of confronting both nationalism and crime - as well as the how the two actually interlocked and supported each other. In one of his first conversations with me after the fall of Milosevic in October, 2000 he expressed his optimal scenario for Serbia: that for two years the international community would provide significant support so that the economy would start to grow while at the same time refrain from bringing up politically sensitive questions like Kosovo or cooperation with ICTY. He maintained that the Serbian people fell into three fairly equal groups: one highly nationalistic in a totally unreconstructed sense; one democratic and eager to move toward Europe; and a critical middle group sympathetic to the siren song of nationalism, but capable of positive movement. His target all along was to move this middle group to the democratic corner. He thought that the key to that was economic prosperity. But he knew that his coalition had radically different views on the questions of Kosovo and ICTY and that if faced with decisions on those issues too soon, it would blow the coalition apart and destroy his chances to change the mentality of the Serbian electorate.  

He, of course, was correct. There was no feasible way to give Serbia a two-year time-out on issues as critical as ICTY or Kosovo. Both moved at their own pace with significant international political constituencies. And as the issues came up, including the arrest and later transfer of Milsosevic to The Hague, the DOS coalition did break up in bitterness. And Zoran Djindjic was assassinated. Based in significant measure on the continued controversy over the ICTY, the unreconstructed, ultra-right Serbian Radical Party has dramatically increased its popularity and is a threat to take control of the government. Meanwhile ICTY issues still are creating a roadblock to Serbia's integration to the Euro-Atlantic structures.

ICTY has also had a big impact on the Croatian political scene with one government after another having to wrestle with the forces of nationalism and the furor caused by every new indictment. The continued flight of Ante Gotovina has slowed Croatia's movement to the EU. Precious time and energy, which could and should have been used for the process of transition, went instead to dealing with Hague-related issues. Meanwhile, in both countries, as well as in the region as a whole, the ICTY is viewed as politically biased and unfair with highly negative popularity ratings.

Could It Have Been Different?

I don't believe it had to have turned out this way. First and foremost virtually none of the