A Cautious Showdown with War Crimes

AIM Zagreb, September 22, 2000

It is like issuing a parking ticket to a mass murderer. This is how the always rebellious Dobrosav Paraga commented on the arrest of Ivan Andabak, carried out as part of a large-scale campaign of apprehending war crime suspects in Croatia last week. Andabak was arrested on suspicion of having smuggled several hundred kilograms of cocaine, though both the news media and the public have long been convinced he was linked to numerous crimes committed in so-called Herzeg-Bosnia, and the destruction of the Old Bridge in Mostar. Paraga has always held him responsible for the assassination of his fellow partisan Blazo Kraljevic, a Croatian ultra-nationalist who tread on the toes of the structures of power in Herzeg-Bosnia by opposing the division of Bosnia, this not making him the best judge of the latest police action.

Despite the controversy, the action has an aspect that cannot be easily dismissed. Croatia is the only country in the territory of the former Yugoslavia that has launched such a massive campaign to apprehend "its own" war criminals. This, however, does not eliminate doubts, even if raised by Paraga, as to its scope, results and purpose: is it not going to be, at least partially, a coverup, a finely-tuned action of a limited scope aimed at getting rid of an unpleasant debt inherited from the war, which the Tudjman government simply transferred to the current Mesic-Racan government.

The fact that among the arrested and detained people there are still active -- or active until recently -- army and police officials, suspected of assisting and abating war criminals in avoiding justice, raises a serious question: are the state structures of Croatia, mostly inherited from the Tudjman period, up to such a huge task at all? That the current government is itself uncertain of its capabilities was intimated by a recent proposal that a group suspected of having committed the Ahmici massacre be tried in The Hague, and not in Zagreb.

These doubts concerning the Croatian judiciary were also recently expanded to include the security services, coming for the first time from official sources. Independent news media long ago described them as the greatest disease of the Croatian state, and even Interior Minister Sime Lucin is publicly accusing the State Security Service of hiring people who are now very vocal in urging that light be shed on all cases of war crimes, though they were well-aware of them at the time they were committed. This indicates that the campaign of mass arrests of people suspected of war crimes in Bosnia and Croatia was forced, and that it would never had happened had it not been for the murder of Hague witness Milan Levar, which could not be left unaddressed. The continuation of the campaign, therefore, has to be closely and ceaselessly monitored, paying special attention to possible "accidental" mistakes in procedure.

Croatia already has one such extremely unpleasant experience from the Tudjman era -- the acquittal of the murderers of the Zec family of Zagreb, who confessed to their crime, but were later released for having made the confession in the absence of their defense counsel. An episode of a few days ago, when the attorney of Ivan Rozic complained to the press that his client was questioned in the Gospic Court in his absence even though he had announced his arrival using proper procedure, immediately brought to mind the Zec case. Even without this incident, however, Gospic judiciary bodies could hardly be considered trustworthy, because they did nothing to clarify the murder of at least a hundred Serbs, and a certain number of Croats as well, despite the fact that almost ten years have elapsed since.

This is why a decision by Croatian top judicial officials to transfer the investigation of the Gospic crime from this town to Rijeka came as no surprise. But, as soon as this was decided, the investigation faced another obstacle, this time in the form of Interior Minister Lucin (a man highly trusted by Prime Minister Racan, who after President Stipe Mesic criticized the police offered his resignation to Racan, only to have it rejected). Lucin told a daily paper that one of the suspects in the Gospic mass murders had confessed to the crime, and had implicated four other people arrested together with him.

The lawyers immediately denied the allegations, and accused Lucin of exerting pressure upon the judiciary. Lucin failed to respond, which surprised no one, because the police have in this case shown a puzzling attitude towards the public all along. Although some ten days had elapsed since the arrest, they issued no statements on their action, as if it were a routine crackdown on pick-pockets, instead of a major campaign, the largest since the six-party coalition came to power.

This "dumbness" can be taken as a sure indicator of at least two things. First of all, although a serious investigation into war crimes and their perpetrators began last spring, shortly after the change of power, there are obvious signs showing that it was obstructed from within, and that the first arrests came only as a result of outside pressure. One of the reasons, the Levar murder, was already mentioned, but the other is equally, if not more, important.

According to local newspapers, the police decided to move and arrest the group suspected of the Ahmici massacre (which official sources claimed left no traces of their whereabouts) only when Ante Nobilo, the defense attorney of Gen. Tihomir Blaskic, revealed that they were in Zadar and its vicinity, giving their full addresses, as well as their assumed names, the license plates of the cars they were driving, and so on.

The other issue highlighted by the police's secretiveness and taciturnity concerns the political context of the event. The police crackdown on suspected war criminals, which resulted in the arrest of some twenty people, provoked an outcry among various groups of war veterans and disabled veterans. They sent a message to the "so-called Croatian authorities" that, by acting in this manner, they were "criminalizing" the struggle for the fatherland and that because of that they would "be toppled" by all legal means available. As was the case after the sentencing of Gen. Tihomir Blaskic several months ago, threats that weapons might be used were heard again.

Racan and Mesic resolutely said they would not succumb to pressure and that the campaign of arrests would proceed as planned. Still, no other arrests were made, no one was called to account for threatening to use arms, and it appears that it is now being appraised how far the protests will go, before any new steps are actually taken. Furthermore, only the direct perpetrators of the crimes and several of their direct superiors have been arrested so far, wherefrom the structures of the former government, that always stood behind the veteran organizations, may infer that the campaign is indeed of a limited character.

A possible expansion could take place once the arrests begin in other states of the former Yugoslavia. Judging from all this, this is a very cautious showdown with war crimes, although opinion polls show the public as supporting such actions for the first time, and failing to fall for the worn-out patriotic rhetoric. Despite this, however, the government seems still unwilling to use such sentiments as a basis for a decisive move against crimes of war.

Marinko Culic

(AIM)