GENERAL ANTE GOTOVINA: CROATIA’S WILLIAM WALLACE
This coming April 15th will mark one year since the conviction of Croatian general Ante Gotovina for war crimes at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. When the ICTY was originally founded in 1993, the purpose for its establishment was to bring war criminals and those who committed serious breaches of human rights during the wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina to trial. But what has transpired in The Hague since the inception of the so-called international court has been nothing short of astonishing. Today, when those who understand the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia view the ICTY, the court is seen in a completely different light in comparison to the time when it began. Previously, victims were grateful to have a refuge in which to speak of their suffering during the war years, but over time, that has all started to change, and, all the more quickly. What the whole procedural process has come to is a complete miscarriage of justice and in the worst possible way. Many contend that the court is politically influenced and motivated, and rather does not represent any viable concept of justice, either for victims or those being tried in the court itself. The question, then, would be how did this come about? The dust following the wars in the former Yugoslavia has barely settled; the wounds are still fresh. Although on the surface it may seem to some extent that the former republics of what was Yugoslavia have started on the path to reconciliation, many would also say that the opposite is true. Many believe that those who committed the most serious crimes were unjustly punished, but not in the sense that they weren’t punished at all, rather in the sense that in many cases, the sentences received for crimes committed were far too lenient and should have been dealt with more harshly in terms of sentencing. One example which comes to mind is in the case of the “Vukovar Three;” Mile Mrksic; Veselin Sljivancanin and Miroslav Radic, who were convicted of war crimes committed in the Croatian town of Vukovar from August to November of 1991. During a three month shelling campaign, Vukovar was completely destroyed. The Croat defenders of the town were outnumbered by as much as 30:1 with scant military resources in comparison to the mass of force possessed by the JNA and Serb paramilitary units. Vukovar became the new Dresden in Europe following the end of the Second World War and the majority of the international community turned a blind eye to the massacre while innocent civilians were being gunned to death and buried in mass graves. For his part, Mrksic was sentenced to twenty years imprisonment and remains behind bars today. Sljivancanin received seventeen years and on appeal had his sentence cut to ten years and is now a free man today while Radic didn’t even get a slap on the wrist. In comparison, in one of the first cases at the court where a Croat was tried, Bosnian Croat commander Tihomir Blaskic was sentenced to 45 years in prison for crimes committed in the mostly Muslim-inhabited town of Ahmici in the Posavina region of central Bosnia. At the time when the decision was first rendered in 2000, it caused considerable controversy, however, on appeal, it was deemed that Blaskic did not in fact have command responsibility of his forces, thus his sentence was reduced to nine years. In a related case, Dario Kordic and Mario Cerkez were sentenced to twenty-five and fifteen years respectively for their roles in the massacre of Muslims in the Lasva Valley in 1993. Kordic appealed for early release two years ago having served half of his sentence but was denied on the grounds that the gravity of the crimes which were committed were too severe to warrant and early release while Cerkez had his sentence rolled back to six years following appeal. Considering some of the examples stated above, one might come to the conclusion that the ICTY has followed its mandate from the very beginning, but other more recent cases show this to be inherently false. The reason for this assertion is logical. It has to be understood once and for all that the wars in the former Yugoslavia were not a collective civil war as some had said while the conflict was in progress and have continued to say in the decade and a half which has passed since the conclusion of hostilities. The entire war in the former Yugoslavia was a war of aggression engineered by former president Slobodan Milosevic, paramilitary leader and political figure Vojislav Seselj (former leader of the Serbian Radical Party) and others, such as former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic, commander of the Bosnian Serb army. Reference to the above four individuals is significant for many reasons. First of all, the trials of Milosevic (while he was alive) and Seselj have in no sense shown any level of expediency with regard to the judicial process, rather they have mirrored political and philosophical debates where the two accused regularly badgered witnesses during testimony with ludicrous lines of questioning (it must be noted that both chose to defend themselves) as a means to prove their arguments to be correct. Secondly, Karadzic and Mladic are important because while they were among the first to be indicted by the ICTY back in 1995, they were also among the last to be transferred to The Hague to stand trial. What can this prove? While it is known to many that Milosevic was the architect of Serbia’s war of aggression against the rest of Yugoslavia, the remaining three were certainly to a great degree his subordinates in formulating the plan for the creation of a “Greater Serbia” on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, yet the Tribunal has failed to address this rather obvious fact. This leads to the third point. It can be argued that there did exist a chain of command, led by Milosevic, but some would dispute this as Milosevic was eventually persuaded to go to Dayton to sign the Dayton Accords which brought an end to the war in Bosnia. But, Dayton has done little if at all to heal Bosnia’s wounds; the country is still ripe with political strife and Bosnia itself continues to be very unstable up to the present day. In essence, Serb crimes committed during the wars in the former Yugoslavia have gone largely unpunished as a result and there are questions as to whether Karadzic and Mladic will ever be convicted of their crimes. Seselj, however could learn his fate in the near future and having said that, it will be interesting to see what the decision of the Tribunal will be following the four year circus that transpired in The Hague with Seselj on the stand. However, some of the more notable cases against Croat accused in recent years, such as the Prlic case (addressing crimes committed by Bosnian Croat forces against Muslims in Bosnia) and indeed the Gotovina case have shed a different light on the Tribunal in recent years. The “Herceg-Bosna” case, as it has come to be referred to in The Hague indicted Prlic and five others for crimes committed against Bosnian Muslims, as mentioned above, during the Muslim-Croat conflict in Bosnia from 1993 to 1994. If all six are convicted, collectively they could receive as much as 240 years in prison. In Gotovina’s case, he was sentenced, along with another general, Mladen Markac, to 24 years in prison, while Markac received 18, for their roles in Operation Storm, in August 1995, which liberated all remaining Serb-occupied territory in Croatia in a matter of 72 hours. Stating this fact greatly shows how politicization of the wars in the former Yugoslavia has continued to play a significant role in trial proceedings at the Tribunal. As already mentioned, the Vukovar Three received minimal sentences – one had his sentence reduced and one wasn’t even charged. Milosevic never lived to see the end of his trial. Seselj, Karadzic and Mladic have all but made a mockery of the court for more than a decade. Let it not be forgotten that Seselj was largely responsible for many of the Serb crimes committed in Croatia, while Karadzic and Mladic were responsible for the siege of Sarajevo; the massacre at Srebrenica and many other horrendous crimes. While others have been charged in these cases (Radislav Krstic received a 35 year prison term for the shelling of Sarajevo), the main perpetrators of these atrocities have largely been left alone. What this amounts to in truth is a lack of transparency at the ICTY. Serbia continually refused to co-operate with the Tribunal under the rule of Milosevic and during the subsequent presidency of Vojislav Kostunica. It was not until Zoran Djindjic became Serbian prime minister that Serbia opened up to the possibility of working with the Tribunal, as a prerequisite to join Europe. But, Djindjic was assassinated in March, 2001, and the Serbs have had their way with ICTY judges ever since. Conversely, the Croatian government has openly worked with the Tribunal, which would not be considered a bad thing unless one is aware just how closely tied the government has been to the ICTY since the death of former president Franjo Tudjman. During his tenure, Tudjman also openly refused to co-operate with The Hague, insisting that Croatia fought a war of defence, not aggression and thus had no responsibility to hand over its war accused. That perception in Croatia has changed drastically in the past decade. Following Tudjman, Stjepan Mesic held two consecutive terms as president, while former Croatian Communist Party chief Ivica Racan took over the position of Prime Minister in 2001. Both Mesic and Racan have in recent years been accused of nothing short of national betrayal in Croatia for the role they played in co-operating with The Hague. According to several reports, tons of documents labeled as secret were sent to the Tribunal to aid the ICTY in identifying, locating and transferring Croatian suspects to the ICTY to stand trial. This also happened in the case of Ante Gotovina. The initial indictment against Gotovina was issued in 2001 and Gotovina, feeling he would not get a fair trial, went into exile. In the meantime and well up to the present day, the European Union has continued to press Croatia with new demands if it wants to be a member state in the EU. One of those conditions was to deliver Gotovina for trial, which happened in 2005. Chief ICTY prosecutor at the time, Carla Del Ponte repeatedly had insisted that the Croatian government surrender Gotovina to the ICTY authorities and Ivo Sanader, prime minister at the time willingly complied with the request, recanting on a promise he had made to the Croatian public in 2001 in saying that Croatia would never surrender Croatian generals who fought for Croatia, which led to his election as prime minister. Gotovina proceeded to wait three years in detention before his trial even began. The trial itself turned out a disaster for Gotovina and for Croatia. In the indictment, which has been revised four times since it was first written, Gotovina was charged with an array of crimes, including murder; plunder of public and private property; deportation; cruel and inhumane acts against civilians and other counts. But, there are several problems with the indictment itself, the most glaring being the fact that the time period covered in the indictment begins on August 4th, 1995 and extends all the way to November 15th of the same year. This is important for several reasons and shows just how much the ICTY was targeting Gotovina for a conviction. First of all, it is true that Operation Storm started in the early morning hours of August 4th that has already been known for years. But what it does draw into question are two particular points of interest which were critical to the final outcome of the trial. First of all, as documents and testimony have shown several times in the past, the Serbs of the Krajina had been given evacuation orders prior to the beginning of Storm; as such few civilians were left in the region when the actual attack began. Furthermore, corridors had been pre-arranged so that the Serbs could get out safely. Having said this, the count of deportation in the indictment never held any leverage, but the court was adamant during proceedings to ignore this fact. What is even more astounding however is the date of November 15th in the indictment as “the final date of operations” concerning Operation Storm. Anyone would be able to see through this glaring error; it does not take a rocket scientist to know that the actual Operation Storm lasted only 72 hours and that by the 7th of August, Gotovina and his forces had already evacuated the Knin area, central to many allegations presented in the indictment, such as the premise that the town was “summarily shelled,” among other false claims. Operation Storm did not include the operations which occurred following the Croatian military advance into Bosnia but the fact that the prosecution insists otherwise proves that the ICTY had malicious intent for Gotovina in mind once the trial process had gotten underway. What the prosecution also chose to ignore is that the goal of Storm was not only to facilitate the return of occupied territory under Croatian control, but also to defend the Bosnian enclave of Bihac, which would have faced a similar fate to what Muslims encountered in Srebrenica; General Mladic in interviews at the time even admitted to this. The ICTY has failed international law and done so seemingly willingly enough. The ICTY’s legacy was supposed to be about justice, but now it will go down into the annals of history as a kangaroo-style, politically motivated legal institution which was meant to defy its mandate, just as the UNPROFOR missions in Croatia and Bosnia did during the conflicts in those countries. The victims remain, but for them, justice will not be served. According to the statute of the ICTY, a joint criminal enterprise can be defined as a group or organization whose purpose and intent is to commit any range and number of serious crimes against another race, religion or other ethnic group. One such example was the ethnic cleansing which occurred in many parts of Bosnia, committed by Serb forces. However, the majority of the people who committed those crimes never faced trial or were handed down light sentences and/or released on appeal. Yet, the term “joint criminal enterprise” at least in its current form never even existed in the practice of international law – the concept thus far has only been used at the ICTY. One would be able to come to the conclusion that it was the goal of the ICTY from the time of its inception to conclude that all sides were equally guilty of crimes and that all should be punished. This is a grave miscarriage of international legal practice. There is ample evidence to the contrary to support the thesis that civil war never broke out in Yugoslavia; rather it was a war of Serbian aggression carried out against all of the other republics, or at least the majority of them. As written in the indictment against Gotovina (and consequently Markac and a third general Ivan Cermak as well), all three were members of a joint criminal enterprise led by now deceased former president Franjo Tudjman; then Croatian Minister of Defence Gojko Susak and then Chief of the General Staff of the Croatian Army Zvonimir Cervenko, all of whom were already deceased by the time proceedings against Gotovina had begun in The Hague. The Gotovina case is a double precedent as well because this is the first instance in the history of war that the name of a deceased person has appeared on a court indictment and been charged with specific crimes and the first time that a victorious general has had to stand trial for war crimes. With the case still under appeal at the moment only time will tell how the future will truly look. As for the final outcome in the Gotovina case, it will decide Croatia’s as well. For if there is one thing which rings true it is this: self defence is not a war crime and Gotovina is not a war criminal. This travesty of international law must be reversed. The modern Republic of Croatia was not founded on a war crime and the international community must realize this once and for all. It is in no doubt that there were crimes committed during Storm in August 1995, but Gotovina has been made a scapegoat for the misdeeds of others. Gotovina is innocent; the true perpetrators of the said crimes are the ones who need to be brought to justice. Time will surely tell, but one thing will never change – Gotovina will always be loved as a hero by those in his homeland, for his sacrifice; for his heart and for what he did to bring a nation at war to its feet to defend its right to self-determination; to not allow itself to be trampled under the enemy’s boot; and to restore a once forgotten pride in the hearts of those who know and love him most.
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