Croatia to assist firefighting in Macedonia

[Zdenko]

The Croatian government on Tuesday pledged to send airplanes and armed units to Macedonia to assist local firefighting operations, according to reports from the Croatian capital Zagreb.

Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski sent a letter to his Croatian counterpart Ivo Sanader, asking for help from the Croatian air firefighting forces to deal with the fires caused by the sweltering heat,the Croatian news agency HINA reported.

The report said the Croatian government made the decision after consulting chief firefighting commander Mladen Jurin.

About 20 large fires were reported across Macedonia as temperatures reached 42 degrees Celsius in a heat wave across the Balkans. Firefighters from Greece and Bulgaria have been sent to Macedonia to help local forces while a state of emergency have been declared last Thursday.

[Sister]

Sentences handed down by the Hague Tribunal have wrong-footed Croatian Prime Minister Sanader and fuelled right-wing calls for an end to Croatia’s cooperation with the ICTY.

Croatia`s parliament on Wednesday condemned the Hague Tribunal’s verdict in the case of the “Vukovar Three” but supported the government’s commitment to continue cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia, ICTY.

However, the Croatian Party of Rights, HSP announced that in just three days it had collected 100,000 signatures for a petition calling for the law on cooperation with the Tribunal to be revoked. The HSP is seeking to collect the 400,000 signatures necessary to call a referendum on this issue.

On 27 September the ICTY handed down sentences in the cases of three JNA, Yugoslav People’s Army officers accused of orchestrating the mass killing of Croatian prisoners after the fall of Vukovar in 1991. The verdicts have elicited shock and criticism in Croatia.

The Tribunal sentenced Veselin Sljivancanin to five years and Mile Mrkisic to 20 years in prison, and released Miroslav Radic. The three men were charged with crimes committed in Ovcara (a farm near Vukovar in eastern Croatia).
Political analysts predict that in the wake of these sentences nationalist views on cooperation with the Hague Tribunal will acquire greater resonance and put the ruling HDZ under fire although they do not expect a major impact on the political scene on the eve of elections scheduled for November.
Following the verdict members of Homeland War associations gathered for three days at Ovcara, at the site of a mass grave of around 200 Croatian prisoners, to pray for the victims.
Last Friday, immediately after the sentences were announced, the Croatian Party of Rights, HSP club of representatives asked the President of the Croatian Parliament, Vladimir Seks, to schedule a parliamentary debate on the verdicts.
The right-wing HSP is the ruling HDZ party’s principal competitor for nationalist and right-wing votes. The HDZ has already lost considerable support from this constituency during its time in power because of “pro European” moves such as cooperating with the ICTY and locating and extraditing General Ante Gotovina to The Hague in December 2005.
Gotovina enjoyed widespread popularity because of his role in operation “Storm” in 1995, which ended the war in Croatia after four years. He was indicted for crimes committed in the course of this operation.
The HSP claimed that the Hague Tribunal had shown its true colors with the “scandalous and shameful verdict on war criminals Sljivancanin, Mrksic and Radic, thus humiliating Croatian Homeland War defenders, families of killed, imprisoned, and missing people and the entire Croatian state.”
The party called for a thorough parliamentary debate on continued cooperation with the Hague Tribunal and also proposed that the whole purpose of the Tribunal be discussed by the UN Security Council.
HSP members also called for implementation of the Constitutional Law on Cooperation with the Hague Tribunal to be suspended.
Croatian Social-Liberal Party, HSLS President Djurdja Adlesic asked Prime Minister Ivo Sanader to explain what measures he intends to take in response to the Tribunal’s “shameful” verdict.
The war veterans' association HVIDRA had already sent an official request asking Parliament to end its cooperation with the Hague Tribunal.

The issue has come to the fore at a bad moment for Prime Minister Sanader, just ahead of elections. In 2001, when he was in opposition, Sanader participated, as President of the HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union), in demonstrations supporting Croatian generals indicted for war crimes. Despite this, the Gotovina extradition took place while Sanader was in power.

As at the time of the Gotovina extradition, Sanader has had to explain to his own supporters why all the countries of former Yugoslavia must cooperate with the ICTY if they want to join the European Union. But he also has to placate nationalists and demonstrate that the government has pursued a robust line in its dealings with the Tribunal.

Ahead of his government’s successful handling of the pricing of HT shares (see Balkan Insight report) Sanader was unable to enjoy the fruits of a major policy achievement and instead had to go off and face his critics in the Homeland War associations.

“When prime ministers have to defend themselves through damage control they are at a disadvantage,” independent political analyst Davor Genero told Balkan Insight. He highlighted the fact that the Prime Minister had met with the Homeland War associations before the upbeat announcement of the HT share price.

Genero suggested, however, that the Tribunal’s verdict is not a body-blow to the Sanader government, because the threat from the radical right is not well organized, but that the verdict has nonetheless come at an “inconvenient moment before the elections”.

Although Sanader had planned to meet the associations at the end of his time in office, the Prime Minister acknowledged that “the shameful judgment” had spurred him to do so earlier.
“I sent a letter to the UN Secretary General that has become an official document and will be distributed to all United Nations members,” Sanader said. He also announced the formation of an international group of experts on international law who will review the judgment.
During his meeting with the associations Sanader said that he had spoken with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Austrian Vice-Chancellor and President of the European Parliament Hans-Gert Poettering about the jurisdiction of the Hague Tribunal.
“I hope the (European) Parliament will soon voice its opinion on the issue of the Tribunal,” he said.
Professor Zarko Puhovski of the Philosophy Faculty at Zagreb University, a member of the Croatian Helsinki Committee, HHO, one of the Croatian NGOs which signed the joint statement against the Tribunal’s verdict, told Balkan Insight he condemns the verdict.
Puhovski believes that the Tribunal’s verdict will not have a major influence on the forthcoming elections by making the nationalist parties stronger because “the HDZ knows how to placate that part of the electorate.”
However, the fact remains that almost forgotten political movements such as the Croatian Victims' Association and its leaders, including former Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Minister Minister Zvonimir Separovic are beginning to enjoy support again.
Separovic announced during a speech at Vukovar on 29 September protesting the Tribunal’s verdict that associations from the Croatian War of Independence, at the initiative of the Croatian Victims’ Association, will organize a demonstration of survivors and mothers of victims in front of the Hague Tribunal this Friday or Saturday.
“We will ask to be received by the president of the Hague Tribunal, and we will inform him of the problems we have with this verdict, and if we are not received, we will leave a message of protest at the injustice of the verdict,” Separovic shouted in front of TV cameras after a long absence from the public eye.
“This verdict gives radical political organizations an opportunity to say – we were right and we said what the government has not said (that Croatia shouldn’t cooperate with Tribunal,” said Genero.
Although the verdicts will not lead to a comprehensive radicalization of Croatian politics, Genero warned that it could have a long-term negative impact on society. He suggested that improvements in Croatia’s cooperation with the ICTY could be negatively affected.
“Institutions such as the judiciary, the secret services and the prosecution could begin to slow down,” he said.
Genero stressed that there have been solid improvements in the field of war-crimes prosecutions. “Croatia has proved that it can impartially prosecute its own officers for war crimes,” he said, citing the case of General Mirko Norac, who is serving a 12-year sentence and facing a further trial for killing Serbian prisoners during the war. “Those trials didn’t just serve a minority constituency but society as a whole,” Genero pointed out.
Both, Puhovski and Genero believe the Tribunal’s ruling in the case of the “Vukovar three” will influence future war-crimes trials in Croatia involving Croatian military officers. It will encourage some people to ask: if aggressors can’t be punished by international courts why should victims be punished by Croatian ones (on the premise that Croatians were victims and not aggressors).
Following the Tribunal’s verdict some veterans’ organization members have already called for the release of all Croatian officers now serving sentences for war crimes.
“If this verdict is upheld it will damage Croatian society in the long run because it will devalue something (the tragedy of Vukovar) which already has a place in national life,” said Genero, adding that all of those who advocate cooperation with the Tribunal now feel uncomfortable.

[Sister]

The rise of global capitalism continues apace, in the strangest of places. This morning the Zagreb stock market may collapse under the weight of first dealings in Croatia’s telecoms company T-HT, privatised amid a frenzy that saw almost 10 per cent of the population scramble for shares. Systems at the registry office collapsed yesterday and the stock market spokesman said gloomily: “There are no 100 per cent guarantees. Stock exchanges around the world have been known to crash.” Equally exciting is the flotation next year of Iran Air on the Tehran stock market – no, I never knew they had one either. Given the potential for exciting dogfights in Iranian air space in coming months, and the Americans’ record on Air Iran flights, the prospectus should be interesting. “Not for the fainthearted,” says my man. “If airline stocks already don’t scare you, this one surely will.”

Goldsmith pressing all the wrong buttons

Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney-general, was addressing the American Bar Association’s conference in London. He thanked them for not withdrawing his invitation even though he is now a mere lawyer rather than a senior member of the Government. He has joined the US law firm Debevoise & Plimpton, after standing down as A-G in June. Goldsmith admitted he has yet to bill his new clients since arriving at the firm. However, normal billing service will be resumed - just as soon as he gets his head around the Debevoise phone system.

A colleague is chatting to a leading drinks industry executive who had better remain nameless. He is pondering the challenges faced by Western companies entering the lucrative Indian market. Such is the level of import tariffs, even though recently reduced to slightly less scandalous levels, that the market in fake Scotch whisky is huge – one in ten bottles, he reckons. Even so, his company was looking for a new bottler for its leading brand. “We asked this local guy to do a trial run and we were absolutely astounded by the quality of the bottle, which looked just like the real thing. He confessed that he had been making the bottles for four years as part of a counterfeit operation.”

The Lord Mayor, John Stuttard, is in South Africa. As I have written, he was there in 1964 as part of a theatrical troupe, coinciding with the early days of Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment. At first, Mandela was kept in the Old Fort in Johannesburg (Gandhi was also imprisoned there, in 1906). This is now a tourist attraction and Stuttard and his group were shown around by Mandela’s daughter Zenani. There is an exhibit of Mandela memorabilia, including a letter he wrote to Zenani, which she read for the first time in 40 years. “It was grim but moving,” my man there says.

Continental drift

I wonder about Lufthansa, which is running an expensive ad campaign for cheap flights. (One appeared in a rival paper next to a piece about the dying Amazonian rain forest, with no one apparently noticing the irony.) “Take off in comfort to Europe,” it says. Aren’t we there already?

[Milica]

The photographs are shocking, because they clearly show that items like plastic bottles and helmets are completely intact.

Stories about the causes of the Kornati tragedy are appearing nearly every day. HTV (Croatian television) posses some court documents, as well as photographs taken the day after the tragedy.

The photographs are shocking because they clearly show that items like plastic bottles and firefighter’s helmets are completely intact. The question is then raised about how it is possible that 11 firefighters were burned so much that they were unrecognizable, whilst next to them were intact items, such as chewing gum for example.

Nobody has offered any explanation, not even MUP’s (Ministry of Internal Affairs) centre for inquest, who first suggested an eruptive fire.

MUP’s report talks of the contamination of the scene of the accident, because of many people passing through the area, and about the large amount of fuel found of the clothing of the deceased firefighters, as well as on part of the island.

A new investigation into the military helicopter is being sought, as well as a compete insight into MORH’s (Ministry of Defence, Republic of Croatia) documentation, in order to see if the MI-8 was serviced after the accident, which would open the door to doubt that evidence is being hidden.

One of the many theories that have been circulating around Sibenik and that area, talks about a bomb left over from military exercises, which allegedly burned the firefighters.

Even though the court sought information on MORH’s military exercises on Kornati, they have not received them, in order to keep a military secret, reports HRT.