REFUSING COOPERATION TO THE HAGUE TRIBUNAL

AIM ZAGREB, July 23, 1999

This is the first time that Croatia will be reported to the Security Council for refusing to cooperate with the Hague Tribunal and unless something unexpected happens at the last moment sanctions could easily follow. This is an epilogue of an unfruitful visit by Louise Arbour, Chief Prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal, to Zagreb where she came to repeat her request for extradition of two Herzegovinian warlords: Mladen Naletilic called Tuta and Vinko Martinovic called Stele.

In Zagreb Arbour met with a cold shoulder because Justice Minister Zvonimir Separovic told her that Tuta's extradition was out of the question as he was being tried in Zagreb, while judicial proceedings for the extradition of the other defendant, found guilty under a valid verdict, have not been completed yet. Perhaps the Chief Prosecutor would have accepted this explanation had not Separovic gone even further and stated that the extradition of the notorious war criminals would be considered only after the completion of their case before the Croatian courts and the serving of full sentence in Croatian prisons.

This was too great a provocation for the Chief Prosecutor who knows that Vinko Martinovic-Stela had agreed to be surrendered to the Tribunal before the Public Prosecutor's Office (!) and not his defence attorney intervened on his behalf. After that his extradition was contested and postponed. Besides, it is well known that both Tuta and Stela were indicted for just a fraction of the crimes which the entire public is familiar with so that Zagreb's refusal to extradite them has obviously only increased its obstruction of the Hague Tribunal despite the fact that Croatia was the first to demand its establishment and to adopt a law on cooperation with the Tribunal. Nevertheless, Separovic reacted coldly and informed the Chief Prosecutor that the extradition of these two would at this moment be at odds with Croatian "national interests".

Although Arbour was told that Croatia had to respect the sovereignty of its national judiciary, it was obvious that Separovic's intention was actually to preserve the "sovereignty" of Croatia's own crimes. This was already clear several weeks before when Justice Minister flew to Split to welcome Zlatko Aleksovski, a Hague convict, whom he cordially embraced upon his arrival. The news about this was received with consternation at the Hague so that when during her Zagreb visit Arbour realised that that move reflected the Croatian authorities' general attitude to the International Tribunal, she resolutely refused to make any comment about her meeting with Separovic to the press. She left the Ministry by the back door and then called a press conference where she read her release on the disappointing result of her visit to Croatia and expressed her firm determination to inform her "superiors" on the East River thereof.

During Arbour's visit to Zagreb it became obvious that Croatia would question virtually all the proceedings that could be instituted against Croatian suspects in the future, repeating for the umpteenth time the arbitrary claim that the number of indicted Croats compared to other nationalities was the greatest. Separovic was especially touchy when it came to the possibility of pressing charges against several Croatian generals for crimes committed during and after the "Storm" and "Flash" operations. He denied the right of the Hague Tribunal to prosecute such cases claiming that those were police and not military operations, i.e. that they were Croatia's internal affair and not an international conflict. This is contradictory to the recently instituted proceedings against FR Yugoslavia for aggression on Croatia as the international component is the most important element in these charges. It was consequently Arbour's impression that charges were pressed only with the intention of postponing the cooperation with the Hague Tribunal to a later date.

After talking to the Chief Prosecutor, Justice Minister Separovic and Foreign Minister Mate Granic tried to hide the impression of total diplomatic failure by claiming that L.Arbour had not even mentioned the possibility of prosecuting crimes committed during and after the "Storm" and "Flash" operations. However, after her press conference Arbour refuted such claims saying that investigations were underway and refused to disclose any details about the potential suspects. It was obvious that she was thus punishing her hosts for the big disappointment they caused her at the end of her term of office after all her efforts to bring culprits for the Ovcara crimes to justice (which ended with Dokmanovic's suicide).

Her harshest statement referred to the fact that even after a series of interventions from the Hague, Croatia was still refusing to submit documents on the investigations of Momcilo Perisic and 18 other YPA generals accused of bombing Zadar. In this way she has "vengefully" admonished the uncooperative Croatia as the Hague was well aware of the fact that there were several facets to the Croatian - Serbian war including a silent partnership between Belgrade and Zagreb in prosecuting crimes. In that context, the Chief Prosecutor came to the conclusion, which was for the first time thus publicly presented, that the behaviour of Croatia towards the Hague Tribunal much resembles that of Yugoslavia which has no regular relations with the Tribunal since it does not recognise the supremacy of its jurisdiction over that of her national courts.

Why did Croatia decide to exacerbate relations with the Hague Tribunal just now? Most independent papers point to the fear of the Croatian state leadership from bearing the brunt of the attack of the Hague Tribunal, for if an indictment was issued against Milosevic it could easily mean that Tudjman would be next. But, no one really knows how much Milosevic feels threatened by charges that have been brought against him. It is even less possible to speculate how much it would affect Tudjman who now has more pressing problems to cope with concerning the current situation in Croatia. This is an election year, in other words the time when the HDZ traditionally freezes its relations with the world consciously encouraging feelings of pseudo-patriotic exaltation among its followers.

A special role in this will be played by Justice Minister Separovic who never made any secrets about his ambition to replace Mate Granic as Foreign Minister - an office which he held in the early nineties - and now is being blackmailed into doing all that is required from him. He himself dictated the terms of his Ministerial term and recently apologised at a massive HDZ gathering for the sins he had committed as a renegade in the past few years. This is an unprecedented gesture even for Tudjman, who likes repentant renegades, and even more likes them to do his dirty work when the going gets tough.

With the clones of the Separovic type, Tudjman completed the most important task - let us only remember the "acquisition" of Bosiljko Misetic. He successfully warded off all attacks on his party coming from within, like in Misetic's case, and from without, as in the case of Separovic.

MARINKO CULIC