The latest revelation about Stjepan Mesic’s hateful ranting against Croatian dignity and truth takes the cake of evil. I say that believing that Wikileaks are in fact leaks of the truth behind political wheeling and dealing among those that could and, sadly, still can.
The distressing fact that Stjepan Mesic still enjoys the frills and benefits of an ex-President in Croatia at the expense of the taxpayers who shed blood and fought for independent and democratic Croatia during 1990’s is utterly humanly indecent and profoundly politically corrupt.
If you still have any doubts about the former USA Ambassador Peter Galbraith’s vicious opinion (recorded also in the ICTY transcripts where Galbraith served as witness for the Prosecution/ joint criminal enterprise theory at play) about the late dr. Franjo Tudjman (First President of Croatia) then you needn’t linger in stressful doubts – any more. Thanks to Wikileaks, you can now safely conclude that Croatia’s former President Stjepan Mesic “helped” Galbraith chisel out from lies his opinion of Tudjman (and, hence, the Croatian Army 1991 – 1995).
If you wondered why after Stjepan Mesic’s secret testimony for the Prosecution in the ICTY from 1996 – 1998 wickedly coincided with worldwide blackening of dr. Franjo Tudjman’s name, with the “joint criminal enterprise” being spearheaded towards Croatia in the Hague, with increasing attempts to equalise the victim with the aggressor in Croatia’s Homeland War, with increased blurbs how Tudjman and Milosevic were in cahoots to divide Bosnia and Herzegovina among them, or why so few of international “government dignitaries” attended Tudjman’s funeral in December 1999, you can fairly safely bet your life on the likelihood that Mesic’s secret testimony in the Hague contained elements of shocking ranting and unfounded attacks against Tudjman and his War-Government he splattered to Galbraith in 1995. No wonder Mesic insisted his testimony be secret, if it weren’t then surely Tudjman would have demanded to be heard in the Hague for the truth’s sake if for nothing else (regretfully he died before details of Mesic’s testimony trickled out; he died before ICTY indictments against Croatian Generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac were laid).
If you wondered why Mesic still enjoys some popularity in Croatia and abroad and why nobody in authority in Croatia has done anything about extracting the full truth of what Mesic had said about Croatian people (excluding himself, of course) in ICTY, then you and I are in the same quandary: how to get to this truth and have it dealt with.
Well, don’t count on the leftist, antifascist/communist coloured current government or the President – unless you participate in some mass-revolt and demand organised by citizens who love their Croatia.
Now we know why the ICTY Prosecutor had for years tried to dig out or make up “evidence” to fit the crime of joint criminal enterprise they concocted. Well, Wikileaks tells us that it was Mesic who started the idea of “joint criminal enterprise” almost 3 months before Operation Storm occurred!
By May 1995, when he met with Galbraith and others, to voice his “concerns and thoughts” Mesic was like a raging wounded bull. A year before he had been ousted (justly, I add without any prejudice) from Croatian Democratic Union, ousted as Speaker of Croatian Parliament and went on to form his own political party (now known as HNS/to which current foreign minister Vesna Pusic and First Deputy Prime Minister Radimir Cacic belong) and considered himself in Opposition, although he did not represent the Opposition in the true sense of the word. But then, it would seem, Galbraith didn’t care about that, he listened, most likely lapped-up the lies with glee, noted and passed on the dangerous garbage that came out of Mesic’s politically vindictive mouth.
It is clear that Wikileaks document shows that in 1995, prior to Operation Storm, Mesic approached Galbraith with concocted, convoluted and wrong theories that would in years to come form a basis for ICTY’s criminal charges of “joint criminal enterprise” against Croatian Generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac, says Croatian Cultural Committee portal hkv.hr.
The absurdity of a judgment for joint criminal enterprise (deportation of Serbs by the aid of alleged excessive artillery shelling) is even more pronounced today with Wikileaks revelations and with the recently published transcripts by Sense agency of the August 1995 Supreme Yugoslav defense advisory meeting in Belgrade, Serbia, where it’s clear that Serbs ordered their people to evacuate/leave Croatia.
In the Wikileaks document one sees that Mesic’s opinion about the multitudes of Serbs leaving Croatian Western Slavonia region (months before Operation Storm, for which the Croatian Generals are currently standing on Appeal in the ICTY) was that such migration of Serbs from Croatia “is equivalent to ethnic cleansing”! It was this wrong and vindictive construct Mesic came up with that served well, it seems, the ICTY Prosecution who used it in subsequent criminal charges for Operation Storm. I wouldn’t put it past Mesic that he repeated the same vindictive allegations as secret witness at the Hague during 1996 – 1998, at least three years before initial ICTY indictment against Gotovina and Markac.
But, CRY MY BELOVED CROATIA, this is not the only lie Mesic told Galbraith – according to Wikileaks – and probably told to the ICTY – behind closed doors – he also said that Tudjman’s Defense minister Gojko Susak “was implicated in the destruction of 32 Serb villages after military action ended in 1991”.
Galbraith, of course, didn’t bother to check that there were no 32 Serb villages destroyed by Croatians (or anyone) in Bosnia and Herzegovina as Mesic ranted – had Galbraith checked surely, as a professional Ambassador, it would have been his duty to insert a comment about his opinion as to the veracity of Mesic’s ranting. Looks like, ICTY didn’t check either, but its Trial Chamber was very quick to pass judgment against dead Tudjman and dead Susak in April 2011 as part of judgment text in Gotovina and Markac cases.
“Seventeen years later,” says hkv.hr in regards to Mesic’s May 1995 ranting to Galbraith, “all the malice and political weight of these false accusations against Croatia is now best seen in the Hague”.
If Wikileaks was the only way we could find out more of the lies told by Stjepan Mesic or anyone whose opinions turn into actions that adversely affect human lives, then I’m all for Wikileaks, all for whistleblowers, all for historical revisionists who set the truth right. And as far as Mesic goes, the matter of the damage he caused with profound untruths to the reputation of Croatian people surely must surface as a priority action in Croatia, if not by authorities then by organised and effective citizens’ organisations/taxpayers. Enough is enough! Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)