Spot Light On Croatia | home
Contact Me | Related Links | Basic Facts | History | Business and Economy | Politics | Photos | Food and Drink | Language | Music | Sports | Schools and Education
Politics
Current Events:
Croatia Cracks Down on War Criminals
|
by Eastern Europe editor James Kliphuis, 15 September 2000
|
In Croatia, there is evidence of a major crackdown against former militiamen alleged to have been involved in atrocities in 1991, at the beginning of the wars in former Yugoslavia. Earlier this week Croatian police arrested twelve people, including three Generals, on charges of committing war crimes in Croatia and Bosnia. These events mark a new initiative by the government of Prime Minister Ivica Racan, to force Croatia to come to terms with its recent past.
Croatian President Stipe Mesic, commenting on the arrests, said that this was only the start of a final settling of accounts with Croats who committed war crimes against Serbian or Moslem civilians during the regime of the late President Franjo Tudjman. Croatian Prime Minister Ivica Racan said that the arrests had not been made at the request of the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague. "This was a matter of justice," the Prime Minister said. "Those that are accountable for war crimes will no longer live freely in Croatia".
The Blaskic Verdict in The Hague
Fine words, but while President Mesic has been saying that war criminals should be brought to justice from the moment he took office early this year, it has taken the Prime Minister considerably longer to arrive at this conclusion. Not that Mr Racan hadn't given the matter of war criminals any thought. The first serious test of his government occurred only weeks after he had assumed power. Then, the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague handed down a harsh 45-year prison sentence against General Tihomir Blaskic for his share in atrocities committed in Bosnia during the "dirty war" in 1993 between Croats and Moslems. One of the counts in the verdict was Blaskic's responsibility, as military commander in central Bosnia, for the Ahmici atrocity where dozens of Moslem civilians, including a seven-year old child, were burned alive in their homes.
Serving Time in Croatia
When the news of the Blaskic verdict reached Zagreb, early this year, the newly sworn-in Prime Minister was shattered.Why now?" he moaned to his closest collaborators, while in front of the US Embassy war veterans staged angry demonstrations. The Prime Minister saw the heavy jail sentence as a direct attack on Croatia and on his new government. To appease extremist war veterans, Mr Racan asked that Blaskic be allowed to serve his prison term in a Croatian jail. Furthermore, he requested that another war crimes suspect, Naletilic Tuta, whose extradition to The Hague had been demanded by the Tribunal, would be allowed to stand trial in Zagreb. But the Tribunal simply turned down the requests for a transfer for Blaskic and a Zagreb trial for Naletilic.
"Beat them to the Punch"
Mr Racan realised that the only way to avoid continued spats with the Hague Tribunal, and riots with nationalist extremists, was to 'beat the Tribunal to the punch'. The Croatian Justice system should start proceedings against those suspected of war crimes before the Tribunal could get to them. Then jail sentences could be served in Croatian jails. And the Tribunal would actually encourage such an initiative!It still took the murder-by-hand grenade (two weeks ago) of Milan Levar, a courageous Croat who testified in The Hague about atrocities committed by Croats in the Gospic region against Serb civilians, to shake the Croatian government into action. But finally the Croatian authorities are tackling the issue of Croatian war criminals.
IMF LOAN POOR ECONOMIC CORNERSTONE FOR CROATIA
When Croatian economic leaders initialed a letter of intent with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), they probably thought they were acting in Croatia's best interest. However, analysis shows that the agreement will do little to assist Croatia's immediate future and may even exacerbate and prolong its economic depression. What the IMF arrangement certainly does not provide is a cornerstone for Croatia to start building a vibrant economic future.
Despite last year's electoral mandate to the new government to move immediately and swiftly to improve the economic condition of Croatia's average citizens, little of substance has been accomplished. For over a year now, Croatia's economic circumstance has worsened and agreements like the one pending with the IMF run counter to that mandate and to sound, growth oriented economic policies.
When they were elected more than a year ago, Croatian government officials and their appointees failed to hit the ground running and clearly had no post-election plan that anticipated worst case situations, especially economic ones, and how to effectively deal with them.
Therefore, turning around Croatia's continuing economic plight is even more difficult now than this time last year. With a looming recession in the United States and a new US administration bent on assisting the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY = Serbia & Montenegro) so that it can become the dominant economic powerhouse in the Daytonland plus region (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, FRY, and Macedonia), Croatia's window of opportunity for obtaining appropriate US assistance is shrinking.
In the past, Badurina & Associates has advised that: "Croatia's future economic development should rest on four cornerstones: 1) sound fiscal and monetary policy, 2) a pro-participation business environment with equitable ownership, 3) an unwavering commitment to education and 4) eco-political decisions focused on the future. None of these cornerstones separately can guarantee the Croatian people an economic windfall but combined, they can achieve the substantial, noticeable results which the Croatian electorate mandated."
What has happened instead? Croatian government dealings with the IMF and other government policies have failed to provide the people of Croatia with open, transparent economic practices and programs. Austerity measures, questionable privatization practices, banking reform and anti-corruption statutes that lack clarity have apparently not helped the economy--unless higher unemployment, a lower standard of living, and slower economic growth are the new definition of increased prosperity in Central Europe.
What is happening now? Croatia's current economic leaders will soon sign an arrangement with the IMF that will ostensibly allow the IMF, not the Croatian government, to decide whether IMF dictated policies will be more beneficial to the Croatian people rather than lower unemployment, increased prosperity, or faster economic growth.
What will happen? Badurina & Associates predicts that the ratification of IMF control over Croatia's fiscal and monetary policies will bring about increasing social unrest and an increasingly dissatisfied electorate. That may result in Croatian voters deciding to elect new leaders who will build appropriate economic cornerstones for Croatia's future.
Heres part of the Constitution:
CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF CROATIA
I. HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS
The millennial identity of the Croatian nation and the continuity of its statehood, confirmed by the course of its entire historical experience in different statal forms and by the perpetuation and growth of the idea of a national state, based on the Croatian nation's historical right to full sovereignty, manifested itself:
- in the formation of Croatian principalities in the seventh century;
- in the independent mediaeval state of Croatia founded in the ninth century;
- in the Kingdom of Croats established in the tenth century;
- in the preservation of the identity of the Croatian state in the Croatian-Hungarian personal union;
- in the autonomous and sovereign decision of the Croatian Sabor (Parliament) of 1527 to elect a king from the Hapsburg dynasty;
- in the autonomous and sovereign decision of the Croatian Sabor to sign the Pragmatic Sanction of 1712;
- in the conclusions of the Croatian Sabor of 1848 regarding the restoration of the integrity of the Triune Kingdom of Croatia under the power of the Ban, on the basis of the historical statal and natural right of the Croatian nation;
- in the Croato-Hungarian Settlement Agreement of 1868 regulating the relations between the Kingdom of Dalmatia, Croatia and Slavonia and the Kingdom of Hungary, on the basis of the legal traditions of both states and the Pragmatic Sanction of 1712;
- in the decision of the Croatian Sabor of 29 October 1918 to dissolve state relations between Croatia and Austria-Hungary and the simultaneous affiliation of independent Croatia, invoking its historical and natural right as a nation, with the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, proclaimed on the theretofore territory of the Hapsburg Monarchy;
- in the fact that the Croatian Sabor never sanctioned the decision of the National Council of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs to unite with Serbia and Montenegro in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (1 December 1918), subsequently (3 October 1929) proclaimed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia;
- in the establishment of the Banovina of Croatia in 1939, by which Croatian state identity was restored in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia;
- in laying the foundations of state sovereignty during the Second World War, through decisions of the Antifascist Council of National Liberation of Croatia (1943), as counter to the proclamation of the Independent State of Croatia (1941 ), and subsequently in the Constitution of the People's Republic of Croatia (1947) and several later constitutions of the Socialist Republic of Croatia (1963-1990).
At the historic turning-point marked by the rejection of the communist system and changes in the international order in Europe, the Croatian nation by its freely expressed will in the first democratic elections (1990) - reaffirmed its millennial statehood and resolution to establish the Republic of Croatia as a sovereign state.
Proceeding from the above-presented historical facts and from the generally accepted principles in the modern world and the inalienability and indivisibility, nontransferability and nonconsumability of the right of the Croatian nation to self-determination and state sovereignty, including the inalienable right to secession and association as the basic precondition for peace and stability of the international order, the Republic of Croatia is hereby established as the national state of the Croatian nation and the state of members of other nations and minorities who are its citizens: Serbs, Moslems, Slovenes, Czechs, Slovaks, Italians, Hungarians, Jews and others, who are guranteed equality with citizens of Croatian nationality and the realization of ethnic rights in accordance with the democratic norms and standards of the United Nations Organization and the free world countries.Respecting the will of the Croatian nation and all citizens, resolutely expressed in free elections, the Republic of Croatia is hereby formed and shall develop as a sovereign and democratic state in which the equality and freedoms and rights of man and citizen shall be guaranteed and ensured, and their economic and cultural progress and social welfare promoted.
To read the rest of the constitution if you have any interest in it go to
http://www.vlada.hr/english/docs-constitution.html