Local Cash

Ok, I’m going to talk politics. I know it’s not socially correct to do so, but there you are. You can always stop reading and de-blog me. You have been warned.
I have noticed posters around the town – a photo of a man in uniform – and I of course, wondered what and who it was about.

The posters are of Ante Gotovina, the last of the war criminals from Croatia that was required to be handed over to the war courts in Haag. The trial has come to an end, and he has been sentenced to 24 years in prison for atrocities against the Serbs during the recent war. So, on the face of it, tako ti je to, it is what it is. The EU has required all ‘war criminals’ to be taken to task as one of the membership hurdles to be jumped for Croatia to become a member of the EU.
The background to this man is that he was from a town near Zadar, he got into trouble with the police as a very young man because of a botched robbery, was involved in another robbery in Europe, and then disappeared into the Foreign Legion, where he was until he came to assist with the recent war. He had close relationships with Frano Tudjman, is considered to be a ladies’ man, with a few children around the place – charismatic and a charmer (but a criminal none the less). He was third in command when 90,000 Serbians disappeared from Knin over a four day insurgence. The Croatian Prime Minister, Jadranka Kosor, is urging "calm and dignity" as thousands of former fighters prepare to vent their spleen if Gotovina and two former fellow commanders cannot have their sentence overturned. Jadranka Kosor says that the ‘government will do all things legally possible’ to reverse the sentencing.
At the point when Gotovina came to the war, the Serbians were occupying 1/3 of the Croatian territory, and his soldiers basically turned the war around. The two commanders above him have both died and so he is the senior office charged with the ethnic cleansing of these Serbians. He is ‘discouraging’ any protest action (a bit like Macbeth – me thinks the man doth protest too much..).
But, to a lot of Croatians, this man is not a criminal, he is a hero, because (as they see it) ‘the UN encouraged Gotovina to take the action that he did, and now he is being sentenced for it’ and had he not met war with war, then the murder of Croatians would not have stopped and the war would not have ended when and as it did. There is local outrage at his sentencing, and street demonstrations in the cities like Split. (Gotovina means ‘cash’ and I heard via an Austrian guy that the music of Johnny Cash, particularly music that he wrote whilst in prison, is being played on the radios in Split).
I have been reading the Slobodna Dalmacija (the local newspaper) trying to work out what it is all about (and believe me this is a slow process, assisted by my trusty rječnik (dictionary)) and an article quoting directly from the New York Times asked whether ‘self defense is a war crime’, and calling for the sentence to be reversed.

Many local people feel the same way, and the Catholic Church is calling for prayers and fasting in the hope of an acquittal. It seems that it is not possible to look at the moral side of Gotovina’s actions in the context of the gratitude that the war ended as it did.

The issue may raise an anti-EU sentiment among Croats at a time when Croatia hopes to wrap up the accession talks.
Croatia hopes to complete the talks with the EU officials in the coming months and hold a referendum on the EU entry soon afterwards.

I’ve been reading a book on the History of Croatia and quote from that book where he is referring to the ambitious attempt to unite so many different nationalities in the former Jugoslavia – he says that ‘while there were always some resentment among the different nationalities… jokes were used to make light of the different group’s stereotypes, for example, three Slovenes make a choir, three Serbs make an Army, and three Croatians make six political parties.’ Croatians are political creatures.
Another book “They Would Never Hurt a Fly” written by a Croatian author deals fairly with the different personalities being tried for war crimes (Serbians, Croatians and Bosnians) and writes at the end of the book that one of the things that sticks in the craw of many people now is that whilst awaiting trial, all those being charged were residents in a hotel in Hague – the Scheveningen Detention Centre – ‘all living together, sharing food being cooked by one of the detainees, playing cards together , sharing the same newspapers, working out in the gym together, taking painting or English classes (led by Slobodan Milosevic), and they were proud of the unity and togetherness that could be achieved - it reminded them of the old days in Jugoslavia when the people of different origins worked together for the common good’. One of the detainees, Goran Jelesic acknowledged publicly in court the achievements made in the Detention Centre, but stated that he ‘didn’t think that those at home were capable of doing the same thing’. Which the writer Slavenka Drakulic states as her final statement ‘makes fools of those who have lost their dear ones – they make all the sacrifices meaningless’.

Oh, and one more quote, just to lighten things up, which I have heard amidst laughter a few times as the quote of the century – this one from the Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor who made headlines as she welcomed tourists at the Croatian border last year, saying in English, that she had been in Hungary the ‘day after yesterday’. The locals love it. They say it and then burst out laughing. And I understood it!

PS I understand that the situation re Gotovina has reached the NZ Herald – would be interested to know the context and the reaction. Please. Thanks. Bog.