Croats, ICTY and Communist Yugoslavia Counterintelligence

 

Robin Harris (L) Visnja Staresina (C)
Zeljko Tanjic (R) (Rector of Croatian Catholic University)
Photo: Screenshot

 

 

11 December 2017 saw the launch of journalist Višnja Staresina new book titled “Hrvati pod KOS-ovim krilom – završni račun Haaškog suda”, translated into English the book title would read: “Croats under the wing of Communist Yugoslavia Counterintelligence Service – The Hague Tribunal’s Final Account”. The book presents as compelling reading particularly as it contains presentations of the manipulations, falsifications, fabrications, mounted court processes, unjust verdicts, politically motivated indictments brought before the court, the Hague Tribunal ICTY,  that were designed and executed to damage and convict Croatian people of crimes they had not committed, crimes that fall under the doctrine, of joint criminal enterprise, where the convicted person does not even need to be indicted of having personally committed any crimes.

A comprehensive review of this book was delivered by Robin Harris in Zagreb, Croatia at the book’s launch and it reads as follows:

I was honoured to be invited to speak at the launch of this important book.

Višnja Starešina is a knowledgeable and authoritative commentator on the activities of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia – the ICTY – and on the political background. She is a fearless journalist of great integrity, and her conclusions should be studied by those in charge of the affairs of this country.

The book could not be more timely or more necessary. Croatia today feels stunned and abandoned, a sensation only increased by the clearly well planned international move to crush dissent in the social media. It is natural that people are asking why Croatia finds itself in this position. Hrvati pod KOS-ovim krilom (Croats under the wings of Yugoslav Counterintelligence Service)  provides at least part of the answer.

I shall summarise the arguments of Višnja’s book, adding a few observations of my own. But before that I cannot avoid commenting on the orgy of self-congratulation with which the ICTY terminated its twenty-four years of work. The Croatian President spoke tactfully though eloquently in defence of Croatia on that occasion. But the picture that the ICTY judges and officials painted of their own achievements is so grotesquely misleading that it cannot go unchallenged.

The ICTY has been an expensive failure. It has done the bare minimum that was expected of it – but slowly, incompetently, working through dishonest compromises, heavily politically influenced, following an immoral programme of equalising guilt between the constituent parties. From starting out as a modest attempt to uphold standards of justice that the international community was too weak and divided to impose by force – it became – as those recent vainglorious speeches show – a self-declared paradigm for future conflict-resolution by international courts. The judgements of the Tribunal, even if sometimes merited on other grounds, were not in fact reached by processes, or according to standards, which would have been acceptable in any developed country – let alone in Britain, which so heartily endorsed the ICTY conclusions.

A classic example is the creation of the concept of the Joint Criminal Enterprise, which in its most extended – and least defensible – form, was used to achieve a guilty verdict in the recent case against the Croat Six from Bosnia and Herzegovina. That was an unjust judgement. It may be accepted – just as the weather tomorrow may be accepted – but it does not need to be respected, and neither does the institution which delivered it.

Two other brief preliminary points:

First, contrary to the claims of the Tribunal’s admirers, its record does not demonstrate that international justice is a useful means of righting international wrongs. Only one significant indicted war criminal was delivered to the court before Operation Storm. It was only after Croatia, with US support, achieved military victory against the Serbs, that the ICTY had any chance of operating at all. This makes it ironic, to say the least, that the Tribunal then sought to indict the very political and military figures whose success made its work possible.

Second, the work of the Court, as Višnja shows, was subject to sustained manipulation by outsiders, not least by the JNA Military Intelligence, the KOS. The assumption that the further away justice is delivered from the concerned parties, the purer it will be, has been shown to be false. That lesson extends beyond the realm of courts. Even small countries, like Croatia, cannot expect better, but rather worse, treatment, if they surrender their interests to multilateral, international bodies, than if they seek bilateral, state-to-state agreements. Sovereignty is important, however small your state.

So let me turn directly to the book. There are eleven chapters and a final and important epilogue. The book examines events on the ground and arguments in the Tribunal both chronologically and thematically.

Chapter one describes the origins of the Hague Tribunal, an organisation which from its modest beginning in 1993 expanded to an annual budget of 270 million US dollars with a staff of a thousand people.

Visnja Staresina and her book cover

Chapter two provides an overview of the close but murky relationship between the Tribunal and the different state intelligence services. An especially important role seems to have been played by British, Australian and Canadian personnel. Particular focus applies here to Graham Blewitt, an Australian, with an anti-Croat track record, who from the Tribunal’s establishment in 1994 to the raising of the last indictments at the end of 2004, was the effective chief of investigations. Višnja suggests that Blewitt served as a guarantee that, the British policy of sharing Serbian and Croatian guilt for the war, as a precondition for the new erection of some new Balkan state association under Serb hegemony “would prevail (p.27). [..jamstvo da će se u politici optuživanja provoditi britanska politika podjele srpsko-hrvatske krivnje za rat, kao preduvjet za ponovnu uspostavu neke nove balkanaske državne asociajicije pod srpskom hegemonijom].

I shall offer a comment on that subject later.

The other intelligence service whose plans and interests were of great importance was the JNA Kontra-obaveštajna služba, or „KOS“. Its head, General Aleksandar „Aca“ Vasiljević, it is suggested, had, well before the outbreak of hostilities in 1991, inserted key agents into what would soon be warring entities. From these positions, KOS agents could do far-reaching damage, while putting the blame onto someone else. A well-known instance is Operation Labrador – the bombing of the Zagreb Jewish graveyard and attempted bombing of the Jewish Community Centre in August 1991. But there were kennelfuls of Labradors, only some of which have ever been tagged and identified.

Chapter three is about Vukovar. Vukovar is crucial to the work – and to the failure – of the Hague Tribunal, for as Višnjna notes:

Uz malo truda, sintezom zločina nad Vukovarom, nad ratnim zarobljenicima i civilima poslije zauzimanja grada i etničkog čišćenja na cijelom okupiranom području istočne Slavonije i Baranje nakon uspostave lokalnih vlasti, moglo se napraviti i vrlo uvjerliv slučaj genocida – najtežeg zločina koji podrazumijeva politički planirano istrebljenje nekog naroda ili etničke grupe s određenog teritorija“. (p. 43) (Translation of quote: With a little effort, synthesis of crimes against Vukovar, against prisoners of war and civilians after the city’s occupation and ethnic cleansing across the whole of the Eastern Slavonia and Baranja region after the establishment of local authorities, a very convincing case for genocide could have been made – the worst of crimes that imply politically planned extermination of some peoples or ethnic group from a certain territory)

Responsibility for the crimes was quickly transferred to local Serb officials – notably Slavko Dokmanović, who conveniently later committed suicide. JNA involvement, by contrast, was minimised, while the role of Četnik paramilitaries was stressed.

Chapter four deals with events and investigations in the Lašva Valley and in Northern Hercegovina.

I found this chapter extremely revealing. Having read Charles R. Shrader’s excellent book, The Muslim-Croat Civil War in Central Bosnia, and having interviewed many Bosnian Muslim and Croat refugees in 1993, I thought that I knew the situation pretty well. But I did not, until now, grasp the full military rationale for the Muslim military campaign in Northern Hercegovina. Nor, despite at the time hearing various unsubstantiated allegations, did I grasp the extreme and extensive savagery of the mujahedeen – who were imported, deployed and controlled by the Army of BiH in its campaign to expel Croats. The Bosniak intelligence service, the AID, sought to conceal that connection. But their success in doing so raises other large questions  – about the seriousness of the work of the Tribunal Prosecutor’s investigative team 9; about the involvement of other agencies – including the British – in downplaying the mujahedeen atrocities; and about the total failure of Croatia, then and since, to publicise the persecution of Croats.

By contrast the (equally real) crimes committed by Croat forces in the military campaign in the Lašva Valley, notably at Ahmići, were vigorously pursued by the Prosecution. The cases relating to these operations were used first to assert a degree of command responsibility unwarranted by realities, resulting in the 45 year sentence (later sharply reduced) against the HVO general Tihomir Blaškić. They then served to allege, in the judgement against Dario Kordić, the existence of a politically-determined plan of ethnic cleansing of non-Croats. This was the foundation of the indictment against „Prlić and others“, which involved President Tuđman and the Croatian state.

As is described in chapter five, no such extended line of responsibility was established by the Prosecution against Serbia for crimes committed in pursuit of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Hercegovina. The Serb concentration camps were an embarrassment because they were created and commanded by JNA, including KOS, officers. Višnja Starešina provides documentary proof of the responsibility of the KOS and of General Vasiljević for these camps. It was necessary to ensure, therefore, that investigation of these facts was frustrated, as indeed it was – by a series of politically convenient and timely deaths.

Chapter six deals with the background to another equally timely death – that of Slobodan Milošević.

The Tribunal’s investigative staff had invested suspiciously little effort in the case against Milošević and Serbia. The Prosecution was, therefore, now desperate for convincing evidence, and when this became available through the good offices of Vasiljević and the KOS networks concessions were willingly made. Instead of sitting beside Milošević on the bench of the accused, as had originally been envisaged, Vasiljević now appeared in 2003 as a major prosecution witness. Moreover, reliance on Vasiljević and on the new post-Milošević government in Serbia for documentation – the Tribunal’s own efforts having been so limited and fruitless – allowed Belgrade to provide just what was necessary and no more. Documentation was redacted and filtered – unlike that supplied wholesale by Croatia under President Mesić. Great efforts were made to deflect blame away from the Yugoslav state, military and intelligence authorities onto Milošević. And then Milošević, himself, on Saturday 11 March 2006, obligingly died before a judgement was reached.

With chapter seven the story returns to Vukovar. The Hague Prosecutor was less interested in pursuing this case, once the Serbian state, the JNA and the KOS became the Prosecutor’s allies in the case against Milošević, of which Vukovar was now just one element. In Belgrade, a criminal case was also now brought. But significantly – as the book notes – while that in The Hague was entitled „Vukovar hospital“ which involved the whole process of identifying and selecting patients up to and including their liquidation, that before the Belgrade court was entitled simply „Ovčara“, in other words removing the first part of the crime in which the JNA and the KOS, that is the Yugoslav state, were the perpetrators. This would not have mattered so much if the Belgrade trial had not been the scene for the preparation – and suppression and distortion – of evidence for the trial in The Hague. This soon became apparent in the way the ICTY indictments were framed.

This chapter also covers the detailed circumstances of the Vukovar Hospital crime, as vividly described in Višnja’s documentary. It shows JNA involvement right up to the moment of the executions. It describes the performance orchestrated by the KOS for media consumption.

To my mind the key fact is the arrival on the evening of 19 November at about eight o’clock of General Vasiljević and other JNA military intelligence officers at Negoslavci, a few miles from Vukovar. The JNA already had a full list of all those inside the hospital. The next day they were to be evacuated. There is, naturally, no evidence of what was actually said at this meeting. But it is as clear as day that its purpose was to decide on which categories of enemy – all of course were regarded as „Ustaše“ anyway – should be subjected to particular kinds of torture and interrogation, and then liquidated.

Vukovar deserves to be regarded as a crime on the level of, and with similar purposes to, that of Srebrenica – which is the subject of chapter 8. Again the connection with former JNA and KOS officers is evident. The methods and chains of command are similar – in the Srebrenica case via Mladić to Karadžić. But while that chain of command was exposed, it was concealed in the case of Vukovar.

Chapter nine examines why the KOS was such an important player. The answer is: because the JNA was indeed, as the book says, „the last defence-bunker of communism and Yugoslavia“(p. 205). As the rest of the structures started to crumble, particularly in Croatia and Slovenia, the JNA, and what can be described as its „brain“, the KOS, became effectively the new power centre.

Chapter ten deals with the indictments against Croats connected with the military operations, Medački džep in 1993 and Storm/Oluja in 1995. It illuminates the unprofessional practice of the Hague Prosecution, notably in the use made of Savo Štrbac and his misnamed NGO „Veritas“ in researching alleged crimes. Chapter eleven deals with the recent case of the Croatian six.

What strikes me in these cases is the complete absence of realism. Wars are never completely clean. But there are degrees of dirt. Moreover, a set of moral rules apply – the rules that over centuries became known as „the laws of war“, from which the different Geneva and Hague Conventions and eventually the ICTY emerged. According to these traditional understandings, there is a difference between aggression and defence, between regaining one’s own territory and capturing someone else’s, and between letting civilians leave a potential battle field and driving them out of their homes. That residuum of moral good sense and legal tradition was effectively discarded in the first instance hearing of the case against Gotovina and others.

Similarly, in the case of the Croat Six, an elaborate, artificial structure of decision making and blame was devised to entangle in shared criminality people who had little or nothing to do with events on the ground. There is no credible evidence that President Tudjman sought to recreate the Croatian Banovina, or that he organised ethnic cleansing, or that he ever agreed with Milošević to divide up Bosnia – which is, indeed, a lie worthy of and perhaps stemming from the KOS. Again one is struck by the lack of understanding of the real significance of decisions made and the limited range of options available. No allowance was made by the Tribunal when assessing Croatian state policy for the fact that Croatia received no assistance from Bosnia when its territory was attacked – nor that without the HVO, and the operationally independent unit of Herceg-Bosna, the new Bosnian state would have been totally overrun in the first months of Serb aggression. No credit was given for the fact that without Croatia’s military action in 1995, Bosnia would now probably be a Serb fiefdom, with much of the Muslim population cowering in camps. No mention was made, except in passing, that even during Muslim-Croat hostilities half a million Muslim refugees were being fed and housed in Croatia – an extraordinary humanitarian gesture demonstrating practical good will from the Croatian state and people.

The book touches in many places on the role of British policy. I would like to add my own comment on this.

British state policy in the early 1990s was, indeed, as is described in this book, a continuation of that traditionally pursued by Britain of resisting German influence in South Eastern Europe, which had for many years also involved looking favourably on Serbia and Serb-dominated Yugoslavia. This was reflected in British Government hostility to Croatia, to which a certain amount of wartime nostalgic sympathy for the Partisans and the Serbs also contributed. It was, however, a quasi-automatic reaction rather than a thought out response, a result of laziness in the absence of leadership. The proof is that had Mrs Thatcher been Prime Minister in 1991 not John Major it would have been different. So explanations of state behaviour dependent on traditions of state interest are never entirely satisfactory.

Under Tony Blair, for example, there was a change in attitude – not towards the new Croatian state, which was now viewed – as I am sure Mr Blewitt viewed it – as a kind of Ustaša revival – but towards the Muslims in Bosnia. Previously, London had viewed the Muslims with no sympathy at all, as at the time of Srebrenica. I remember the military briefings blaming the Muslims for their own predicament.

Britain was also the main political force behind bringing and pursuing the Gotovina case. This, though, was not driven by British state interest, but rather a desire to spite the Americans, who had been proved right in pushing for the military option against Belgrade. Britain is now well disposed towards to Croatia. This is not primarily because of a change in interests but a change in UK government personnel.

Finally, in assessing the motivation of the Tribunal, particularly in later years, it is important not to forget that ideology became increasingly dominant. The doctrine and practice of universal jurisdiction, as a central element of global governance, has been pressed by America – until the election of President of Trump – and by the EU. It is also backed by powerful international financial interests. This globalist anti-national programme is arguably the single most important factor driving world events. Its adherents regard Croatia as the antithesis of what they want the new world order to look like. Croatia is a small, recently created, state, committed to national identity and to the Catholic faith and tradition. Today’s doctrinaire internationalists certainly view Croatia with at least as much contempt and hostility as did Karl Marx. That should be a badge of pride; but the badge is also, and will always be, a target.

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(Dr Robin Harris is a British historian, author and publicist worked as close adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher herself from 1985, writing her speeches and advising on policy. By the close of her premiership, he was probably the most trusted member of her political team at Downing Street, and he left Number Ten with her.)

Outrageous UN-Court Rape Of Croatian Historical Truth And Global Common Sense

General Slobodan Praljak

There are good reasons why death sentences have in most countries been abolished – one is that innocence of crimes can escape even those judges that enjoy the reputation of impeccable competence in judging evidence before the courts.

Do not for one moment even consider let alone believe that Croatian General Slobodan Praljak was a war criminal – his ICTY indictment did not include any crimes that he himself had committed against Muslims/Bosniaks, by his own hand. The crimes he and others in the group were indicted for basically come in the form of participating in a politically concocted concept and doctrine of joint criminal enterprise/line of command responsibility even if some actual crimes that have been said to have been committed occurred hundreds of kilometres away, hundreds of kilometres away from any knowledge or participation, any planning on their part…

The Croatian general Slobodan Praljak’s act of suicide by poison in the courtroom, Hague, on Wednesday 29 November 2017, after standing up in the dock and saying “Slobodan Praljak is not a war criminal and I reject your judgment with contempt”, is perhaps the strongest statement of disdain for unjust court verdict, injustice, the modern world has seen. Having served much of the 20 year prison sentence passed, awaiting ICTY trial and appeal, Praljak would have been out of prison within a couple of years. To his credit, that just and decent human being, Croat, was not going to serve a prison sentence as a wrongfully convicted war criminal a single day longer! That speaks volume of his courage and honour!

Rest in God’s peace and embrace, General Slobodan Praljak.

In its final judgment, before it closes operations, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague had shown its true, immersed in politics rather than facts colours. ICTY has on Wednesday demonstrated that it is a body that toys with history and evidently writes history – false history! If anything defines a joint criminal enterprise then this judgment itself would surely rate among the top culprits.

I am certain you have read numerous news articles or seen numerous videos, heard numerous audios paraphrasing and interpreting, in the simplest of forms, that which occurred in the Hague on 29 November 2017, in words to this effect: “While Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina were busy carving out the borders with ethnic cleansing and genocide of what became Serbian Republic within Bosnia and Herzegovina state borders, stamped as valid entity in the Dayton Agreement 1995, in the southwest, Herceg-Bosna region, Croat forces with significant support from Croatia turned on the Bosnian Army (Bosniaks/Muslims) and set out to establish their own ethnically homogenous space, using some of the same methods of ethnic cleansing employed by the Serbs…”. Yes, the bottom line of the ICTY Appeal Chamber finding was exactly that. The fact that the Croat-Muslim conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina broke out to a full war rests with Muslim/Bosniak (helped by Mujahedin’s from Middle East and surrounds) attacks and massacres, not the other way around. Just consider the massacres of Croats by Bosniak/Muslim forces in the villages of Luzani, Gusti Grab, Dusina in January 1993 and track the Muslim onslaught that continued with regular and vicious force against which the Croats needed to defend themselves, and your conclusion would be that Croats were not the aggressor as ICTY says.

The facts that are well known to the ICTY will lead you to Muslim-led Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ABiH) with its attachments of foreign fighters referred to as “Mujahedin” or “Holy Warriors”. The “Mujahedin”, who principally came from Islamic countries, began to arrive in Bosnia and Herzegovina sometime during the middle of 1992. The “Mujahedin” were prepared to conduct a “Jihad” or “Holy War” against those of different faith and religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina. ABiH with its Mujahedin forces attacked towns and villages mainly inhabited by Croats. Predominately Bosnian Croat civilians, including women, children, the elderly, and the infirm, were subjected to wilful killings and serious injury. In the course of, or after the attacks, many Croat civilians were killed and many more were wounded or harmed while attempting to hide or escape. In several instances, ABiH forces killed Croatian Defence Council (HVO) troops after their surrender. Mainly Bosnian Croats were unlawfully imprisoned and otherwise detained in ABiH detention facilities. The imprisoned and otherwise detained Bosnian Croats were killed and beaten, subjected to physical and / or psychological abuse, intimidation and inhuman treatment, including being confined in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, and suffered inhumane deprivations of basic necessities, such as adequate food, water and clothing. They were provided little or no medical attention. Bosnian Croats who were imprisoned and otherwise detained were forced to dig trenches, to build bunkers and to collect human bodies in hostile and otherwise hazardous conditions. Some such imprisoned and otherwise detained persons were killed in the course of being forced to engage in such activities. Imprisoned and otherwise detained Croats were used as both human shields and hostages. ABiH forces plundered and destroyed Bosnian Croat property with no military justification. Bosnian Croat dwellings and buildings, as well as civilian personal property and livestock, were destroyed or severely damaged. In addition, Bosnian Croat buildings, sites and institutions dedicated to religion were targeted for destruction or otherwise damaged or violated…

Listing the atrocities committed by Bosniaks/Muslims against which Croats needed to defend themselves in Bosnia and Herzegovina would be an almost endless exercise if one were to examine ICTY recorded facts, but on 29 November 2017 the ICTY chose to pontificate without proof of individual responsibility for crimes on a doctrine of joint criminal enterprise against Croats. Were Croats driven by any shape or form by the alleged joint criminal enterprise would they, instead of Muslims/Bosniaks not have been the attackers in the first instances that led to full out war?!

ICTY’s finding regarding Croats and joint criminal enterprise to do with Herceg-Bosna and Bosnia and Herzegovina as a whole, really, could not be further away from the truth, from the facts, and it must be reacted to with outrage.

What ensued in the Appeals Chamber of in The Hague on Wednesday 29 November 2017 regarding judgment against six Croats from Bosnia and Herzegovina (Jadranko Prlić, Bruno Stojić, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petković, Valentin Ćorić and Berislav Pušić) is nothing short of outrage. Outrage pointed at the UN Tribunal that, in majority opinion from the bench, disregarded facts and evidence, which, if given due evidentiary weight, would give them no option but to overturn the 2013 Trial Chamber verdict of joint criminal enterprise. But, its not far-fetched to conclude that the ICTY has made up its mind a long time ago to brand Croatia and Croatians including the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) defending themselves from brutal aggression by both Serbs and later from Bosniak (Muslims) onslaught in early 1990’s as aggressors rather than defenders. That political agenda had been set a long time ago, including with the cunningly executed help by the former president of communist Yugoslavia Stjepan Mesic whose corrupt and perverse fabrications of false political agendas evidently made an impact with ICTY that would see Croatia be equated to Serbia when it comes to aggression. Yugoslav communists have never forgiven Croatian people for establishing an independent and democratic state, for seceding from communist Yugoslavia and last week, at The Hague, the world saw a victory of communist lies.

The indisputable fact is that both Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were the victims of a Serbian aggression that sought to create a Greater Serbia. “During wartime events in Bosnia and Herzegovina there was not a joint criminal enterprise on the Croatian side nor was there any idea that would include actions that are not in accordance with the international legal order. It should be emphasised that Croatia is the most responsible for the establishment and survival of Bosnia and Herzegovina as an independent country,” said a statement by Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic
Photo: Screenshot

In its first reaction to the ICTY joint criminal enterprise verdict the Croatian government said that many of the allegations in the verdict handed down by the Hague war crimes tribunal in the case of six Bosnian Croat wartime political and military leaders did not take into account the historical truth and facts, that those allegations were unfounded and politically unacceptable, and that it would consider all legal and political mechanisms available to contest them.

The government expresses deep dissatisfaction and regret over today’s verdict which confirmed the sentences for Jadranko Prlic,Bruno Stojic, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petkovic, Valentin Coric and Berislav Pusic. Many of the allegations do not take into account the historical truth and facts, they are unfounded and politically unacceptable,” the Croatian government said in a statement.

The government recalled the assistance Croatia had extended to Bosnia and Herzegovina when the Serbian military aggression threatened its territorial integrity.

The Croatian government has announced that it will proceed with plucking out parts of the ICTY Appeal Chamber judgment that are wrong and do not fit evidentiary facts and present those to the UN, Security Council with view to discrediting the judgment. This needs to be done post-haste and immediacy in order to stop the grave human suffering this judgment has caused and is causing.

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic
Croatian President
Photo: Screenshot

Croatia’s President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, who spoke Thursday 30 November 2017 said: “His (Praljak’s) act struck the heart of the Croatian nation. As the president of Republic of Croatia I want to say clearly and unambiguously that the court in The Hague yesterday did not pronounce a verdict against the Republic of Croatia or against the Croatian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Croatia was not the aggressor, but did most for the survival of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a whole, and the Croatian people were the first to resist the Greater Serbia aggression, defending their survival and the survival of Bosnia and Herzegovina as its own country. Croatia and Bosnia were attacked by Milošević’s Serbia and the Yugoslav National Army and those are facts. Croatia didn’t attack anyone…We Croats must have the strength to admit that some of our nationals in Bosnia and Herzegovina did commit crimes and they must be held responsible for them. It’s unjust that Bosniak and Serb crimes against Croats have not been punished in the same way…I call upon Bosniak leaders to do everything in their power to ensure this judgment is not abused, but that it be the end of one and the beginning of a new era… Regretfully, at the very end of its (ICTY’s) existence a conclusion jumps at us that the Tribunal has omitted to achieve its goal of bringing justice for victims of crimes. It placed itself as a political arbiter and not a judicial body… Croatia, along with the United States of America has done the most for the unity of Bosnia and Herzegovina …We will fight with all legal and political means for the truth and justice…

Well, no, the ICTY did not deliver a verdict against Croatia or Croatian people specifically but the effects and the meaning of the verdict are exactly that. As it stands, the verdict gives a certain licence for all manner of persecutions against Croatians in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the least of which are criminal indictments of similar nature against persons who have committed no crimes. Such an outlook would serve no other function but to aid the Bosniak plan for supremacy in the Federation of Bosniaks and Croats within Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is an outlook that is in itself criminal and utterly perverse, for it satisfies no justice for victims who perished by the hand of others, not of the accused. It’s regretful that the president did not reject the ICTY verdict outright or, at least, announced that she will do everything in her power to challenge it.

The facts to which the ICTY Appeal Tribunal in its verdict of joint criminal enterprise (that Croats formed Herceg-Bosna entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina with view to joining that part of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Croatia and in that name committed war crimes) wilfully turned a blind eye to include:

  • If it were not for the Croatian defence Council (HVO) – which ICTY has branded as the military component of what it says was a joint criminal enterprise – Bosnia and Herzegovina would not have been successful in its defence from Serb aggression nor would it have been internationally recognised as an independent state (beginning of April 1992 Croatia was the first country to recognise Bosnia and Herzegovina as an independent and sovereign state);
  • Croats and Croatia at all times maintained the resolve that the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina should remain as is, without divisions and continue as triethnic state made up of three constitutionally equal peoples: Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs. Croats gave decisive votes at referendum beginning of 1992 to keep Bosnia and Herzegovina as undivided and one state while at the same time the Serbs proclaimed part of the state as their republic, just as they did in Croatia the year before;
  • All humanitarian and military assistance to Bosniaks/Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina went via Croatia; Croatia enabled and carried out within its own territory and with own resources the training of various formations and hierarchy of Muslim/Bosniak army personnel; Croatia took over the care of over 500,000 Bosnian/Muslim refugees during the war; over 15,000 war wounded Muslims from Bosnia and Herzegovina were treated in Croatia’s hospitals and medical centres; – these certainly are no actions a country, Croatia, intent on being an aggressor against Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the ICTY says, would undertake;
  • Croatia and Herceg-Bosna were signatories together with Bosniak representatives to all international agreements during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina – neither was considered criminal then;
  • Bosniaks pursue the line that Herceg Bosna was a criminal enterprise that wanted to attach itself to Croatia – this defies all logic and common sense, let alone the facts that serve as evidence to the contrary – the fact that Bosniaks and Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina signed the Washington Agreement in March 1994, forming a Federation of Bosniaks and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of these facts;
  • Croats and Bosniaks/Muslims fought side-by-side to defend Bosnia and Herzegovina against brutal Serb aggression; defending, for example, the city of Bihac in 1995 which, if not defended by Croats would have seen another Srebrenica/genocide of Muslims – the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina actually called upon Croatia and Croats to intervene and help their defence against the Serb aggressor (ref. Split Agreement/ Declaration, July 1995).

Without a doubt, the ICTY Appeal Chamber had ample evidence to overturn the Trial Chamber finding of joint criminal enterprise against Croatians. No one would dare dispute that members of all three ethnic groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina committed crimes during the war but the responsibility for those crimes must be attached to individuals who committed them not to some flight of fancy of some doctrine that’s driven by a direction of a geopolitical gang and steered by opinion rather than fact.

Not a single person among the six Croats who faced ICTY Appeal judges on Wednesday 29 November 2017 had commanded, planned or committed war crimes.

General Zeljko Glasnovic
Member of Croatian Parliament for Diaspora
Photo: Screenshot

And so if one wants to tell it like it is/was one cannot ignore the words spoken by Member of Croatian Parliament for the Diaspora, General Zeljko Glasnovic, on Thursday 30 November 2017: “…what occurred yesterday (in The Hague) was rape of historical truth and common sense…

The very body that hands down justice, or is supposed to hand down justice, whose verdicts must serve civilisation’s standards, to reflect both historical and factual truths – ICTY for example – turns the victim into an aggressor! For political gain that serves someone’s agenda and it’s not that difficult to decipher whose agenda. We live and learn. We live and suffer injustice, we do not and should not engage in revenge because of injustice struck against us – we wait as the Bible says: “…vengeance is mine, said the Lord!” Truth will out! Ina Vukic

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