Fugitive at large leaves two sides in disarray

Date: 24/03/05

Could Croatia's President Stjepan Mesic and Prime Minister Ivo Sanader actually be right when they say that they are doing everything in their power to find fugitive General Ante Gotovina? After all, were not these two politicians often praised - not least by Brussels - for their efforts to bring Zagreb out of the murky 1990s, when the late President Franjo Tudjman's undemocratic rule brought the country to the brink of becoming an international pariah?

On one level, the answer is irrelevant. While it is perfectly possible that most Zagreb leaders are sincere, it is now too late in the game to play the trust card. It is simply too late for Zagreb to say that it does not know where Gotovina is, even though this may well be true now. At the very least, Zagreb failed to pursue the issue with sufficient determination when there was a fair chance that Gotovina could be located. It is therefore Zagreb's fault if Gotovina has in the meantime fled to a 'Paraguay' or has become so good at evading arrest in Croatia or Croat-controlled parts of Bosnia. Sanader's government has gambled away its credibility on the Gotovina issue. Lost credibility is hardly ever recovered through fresh pleas to be trusted again.

Zagreb's behaviour has also put the EU's own credibility on the line. Had the EU turned a blind eye to Gotovina's continued absence from the dock, it would have sent a deeply wrong message to Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, an opponent of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), who has yet to ensure the transfer to The Hague of 12 war-crimes suspects believed to be in Serbia, including General Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb wartime military commander accused of genocide. It was therefore always very short-sighted of Zagreb to take international warnings over Gotovina lightly.

Which is not to say that the West's fixation with top war-crimes suspects has been the most effective strategy to persuade the region to start engaging in a meaningful way with the gory baggage of the 1990s. While it is obviously of extreme importance that people such as Gotovina, Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb wartime leader, be brought to justice, their trials alone are unlikely to transform views on the region's past. The Hague trials of Belgrade strongman Slobodan Milosevic and a handful of his closest associates, for example, have so far failed radically to move public opinion in Serbia.

Instead of focusing almost entirely on its slalom through a seemingly endless series of deadlines for the extradition of top politicians and generals - deadlines that are sometimes high on melodrama but rather low on actual political content - the international community might have done the Balkans more good by simultaneously putting more thought and ploughing more resources into educating the region about international justice and the practical importance of reconciliation. Without such education, Balkan politicians and laymen alike will continue to interpret extradition demands as offerings that they must make in order to be admitted to the periphery of the big, powerful western hemisphere.

Public opinion polls suggest that many Croats felt humiliated by the EU's decision to delay the start of accession talks. Unsurprisingly, support for EU membership fell sharply last week. Only 38% of respondents in a Eurobarometer poll said EU membership would be good for Croatia, an all-time low. But it would be wrong to read too much into such findings. Levels of support for EU membership were always bound to fall as more ordinary people realised the EU is not a rich man's club that guarantees German wage levels, but rather a club that will require radical and often painful changes from Croatia.

Slightly more worrying are polls that put opposition to Gotovina's extradition at some 70%. But again, it would be a mistake not to take this figure with a pinch of salt. While such poll findings certainly reflect both misconceptions about international justice and strong nationalist sentiments, it is important to note that there is very little evidence that The Hague issue significantly affects party and individual politicians' ratings.

So far, no instance of co-operation with The Hague by the authorities in Belgrade, Zagreb or Banja Luka - the capital of the Serb enclave in Bosnia - has triggered a significant anti-government backlash. In fact, it can be argued that Sanader's own predecessor, Ivica Racan, lost credibility - and an election - not because he promised to co-operate with The Hague, but because he made a cowardly mess of it.

If Sanader's own support falls, it won't be because he is seen as someone who is trying to arrest and extradite a Croatian war hero against the wishes of his voters, but because he is seen as weak and inadequate. If he is lucky enough to find Gotovina soon, many of those 70% will certainly nurse a grudge and some may even gather in protest in nationalist strongholds such as Zadar, but the government's own position will only be strengthened if a plane with a handcuffed Gotovina on board takes off from Zagreb.

Of course, this little paradox highlights the issue of credibility. While Croats and other Balkan electorates may not understand much about the workings of international justice, they certainly understand credibility full well. Either one has it or one does not. While they may not be madly in love with the EU at the moment, chances are the Croats don't respect Brussels any less than they did before 16 March.

• Tihomir Loza is Balkan editor of Transitions Online. A longer version of this article can be found at www.tol.cz

Author, who is Balkan editor of Transitions Online, suggests that on the issue of the fugitive Croat General Ante Gotovina, who is sought by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague, Croatia's government has gambled away its credibility. He suggests that the issue did not seriously harm Croatia's relationship with the European Union in the long run.