Croatian Indictments Expected
There are signs that alleged Croatian war criminals may soon be brought to justice.
Croatian Indictments Expected
There are signs that alleged Croatian war criminals may soon be brought to justice.
Widespread speculation that the Hague Tribunal is to indict three Croatian
Army generals for alleged war crimes committed during the "Oluja" military action
of 1995 has been fuelled by the country's leadership.
Reports in the Croatian press predict that the three generals - Ivan
Cermak, Anto Gotovina and Mirko Novic - will be indicted in August, the fifth
anniversary of the army's reconquest of occupied Croatian territory, during which 200,000 Serbs were forced to flee.
President Stipe Mesic and Prime Minister Ivica Racan are
scheduled to return from a visit to Washington as guests of the US
President Bill Clinton at the end of the first week of August. It is hoped that such a strong expression of approval and support from the White House will bolster the new Croatian authorities against expected protests by Croat extremists opposed to the possible extradition of
the three generals.
The late President, FranjoTudjman, insisted that Croatian soldiers were incapable
of committing war crimes, which is why no one has so far been tried - even those Croats currently at the Hague were all indicted for offences committed in Bosnia. President of the Supreme Court, Milan Vukovic, argued at the time of "Oluja" action that Croats were engaged in a defensive war and therefore unable to commit crimes.
However, the political landscape in Croatia has now changed and speculation
that the Hague Tribunal has completed the indictments, and is waiting for the right moment to release them, was fuelled when Mesic and Minister of Justice, Stjepan Ivanisevic, were asked to comment on the issue.
"If the Office of the Prosecutor at the ICTY had brought indictments
against these three generals, then I am sure chief prosecutor Carla del
Ponte would have informed us directly," said Ivanisevic. "I have not yet
been informed which I think indicates that the charges have not yet been
raised."
Ivanisevic's apparent confidence that indictments have not been
raised "yet", was matched by Mesic remarks that "only when
certain individuals have stood trial, when they have faced their
international justice and their own consciences, will collective
accusations stop and collective guilt end."
Mesic's comments about the need of individual trials to decollectivise
guilt echo the views of Zarko Puhovski, a member of the executive board of
the Croatian Helsinki Committee, CHC, which has investigated and reported
on war crimes in Croatia. "There certainly were war crimes, both during
Oluja and afterwards," he said. "Until individual guilt is established for
each of those murders, the crimes will continue to be 'Croat' crimes."
The latest CHC report lists 267 people as having been killed or disappeared in
Lika during the "Oluja" action, bringing the current total of people killed and
disappeared in the region to 677. In contrast to HDZ days, when reports
of possible war crimes were attacked as treacherous and suppressed, the CHC
has received widespread coverage and speculation about the possible
indictments is an ongoing story in the Croatian press.
The new authorities are likely to cooperate with any extradition requests
from the ICTY, but they will need to proceed cautiously. When Bosnian
Croat Tihomir Blaskic was found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to 40
years in prison last March, the Croatian right organised big demonstrations
in front of the USA embassy which shook the newly-established coalition.
With a failing economy and unemployment at over 20 per cent - the legacy of ten years of HDZ rule - the threat of social unrest is ever present. In such an atmosphere, it is feared that
the extreme right - which includes a lot of disgruntled HDZ members - could
use the indictment of the three generals to spark mass protests and even
attempt to overthrow the government.
Drago Hedl is a regular IWPR correspondent
