with special thanks  to the UN SECURITY COUNCIL REPs who accorded us the meetings, and to all Croatians and friends who contributed to the topics of these meetings in direct or any other way, then as now [and please follow up!]

INTRO [UPDATE]    REPORT   GENERAL FRAMEWORK    RUSSIA   CHINA   BRITAIN   US   FRANCE

INTRO [UPDATE]  

This is an internal, ad hoc report that I prepared following the meetings with the Security Council representatives in New York City on April 7, 2006.

We publish it for a wider readership, given that it will demonstrate more than clearly that the only real obstacle to correcting the blatant injustices and irregularities of the International Criminal Tribunal at The Hague (ICTY) has been imposed by Croatia’s current government.

It will also portray the mood towards the ICTY at a world-wide level, and raise a serious question: If we ordinary citizens of Croatian origin were able to bring some problems with the ICTY to the attention of the international community, why Croatian diplomacy has never done nothing (but the damage to Croatia and to the Croatian heroes, and in particular to Gen Ante Gotovina).

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The meetings this report refers to were scheduled by the American citizen J.P.., who also printed the folders and documents for our colocutors, while the folder themes as well as our points of discussion were authored and inspired by various CWA activists, including certain Croatian activists out of CWA.

The folder and the documents mentioned in the report, including more detailed contact info regarding the parties the meeting was held with, are available on request, which needs to be directed to the author of this report. Anonymous and hostile parties’ requests shall not be replied to.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

 As an active participant at these meetings, I proposed some documents for the folder, but more importantly, I extended the discussion to Operation Storm, and particularly to the undemocratic practice by Croatia’s government who prosecuted everyone who voiced the truth about Croatia’s war of independence and war heroes (not to mention their betrayals of, and criminal enterprise against Gen Ante Gotovina); while JP focused on the journalist issue more than anything else.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

JP, among others, received this report, heartedly approved of it, and was to contribute her points so that we round it up, but soon after these meetings, she changed her heart. JP betrayed her promise that we would be deciding together on all our future actions; and dispatched my unedited text on the meetings even to the contacts from which she herself had previously wanted to keep them secret. She also mysteriously sidelined and removed me from CWA, so to gradually dismantle the entire CWA organization. Now JP’s CWA serves only to compromise Croatia (VK affair) and promote anti-Croatian authors who otherwise would have no influence due to their open pro-Milosevic stance, given that almost everyone knows in today’s world who’s Milosevic and what kind of anti-Croatian propaganda his weird funs are reviving. However, there still might be copied-pasted some pro-Croatian articles at here site, but only as a smoke-scream that can no longer hide JP’s murky activities, to which I will refer again while updating some points in the report, in the brackets […]

REPORT ON SECURITY COUNCIL MEETINGS

The key issue of our meetings with the UN Security Council was the injustice and false indictment against General Ante Gotovina who led Operation Storm and ended the war in both Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

J.P. would start with presenting the folder. The folder contained the fact sheets on Operation Storm and political motivation behind the false indictment against General Ante Gotovina; the fact sheet on abuses committed by the ICTY’s prosecutor; the indictment against 6 Croatian journalists, which was a case against ICTY Chief prosecutor in itself; various CWA and other press reports, showing the obvious contradictions and irregularities at the ICTY. Then followed a discussion with out hosts. We tried to increase their understanding of the circumstances around the indicted generals and journalists. J.P.’ mostly spoke from the American Democrats’ position, seriously, but honestly and with her heart [the same one she changed later], while I had more direct experience with Croatia and the western civil and military practice which enabled me to provide more details on the intolerable and dangerous attitude by the ICTY prosecutor and Croatia’s Government.

The following are my personal notes on what we were able to tell to the French, the Chinese and the Russians, and only begin to explain to the Americans….. But the report includes the British too, although they were the only ones that didn’t give us the meeting.

[It will portray the mood of the international community toward the ICTY, although we can inquire now how come no firm action against the ICTY’s injustices and abuses wasn’t taken as yet neither by the Croatian government nor the international community.

How come the truly western, European military commander – Gen Ante Gotovina who stopped Milosevic’s, Karadzic’s and Mladic’s wars – is sill in the ICTY’s prison awaiting a politically motivated trial against him!  

Under which “international” or “European” jurisdiction the ICTY could have indicted and fined Croatian journalists for reporting the truth, and even imprisoned them.

In spite of the issues clearly demonstrating the irregularities, biases, contradictions, and absurdities behind the ICTY’s indictments, which we clearly brought up before the UN Security Council representatives, nothing has been done yet so to stop the Stalinist/communist/Titoist-style prosecutions by Croatian Government and the ICTY.

The truth has no equal opportunity – it has no opportunity at all in the fraudulent claws of the ICTY and Croatian government.]

GENERAL POINTS

We were allowed to present thoroughly the issue of the falsely indicted Croatian general and the journalists to the Russians, the French and the Chinese.

None of them appreciated the Croatian government’s duplicity and treachery that allowed, if not incited, the ICTY to falsely indict Croatian generals and the journalists, and then silence the press on Carla Del Ponte’s request.

I clearly stated that our main concern wasn’t to see the Serbian war criminals in The Hague, as long as they don’t present the danger to Croatia and stay within Serbia/Belgrade. It’s Serbia’s and the ICTY’s problem. [By the way, we were not the ICTY’s employees!] The ICTY should have dealt with the Serbian aggression against Croatia and the Serbian war criminals responsible for the war and war crimes against Croatia and other countries; instead of indicting the Croatians who stopped their war crimes! We went to the NYC to discuss the ICTY’s injustices against the Croatians. What we were primarily concerned with was that our Gen Ante Gotovina and the journalists – be acquitted of false charges.

I believe we pretty well explained how Croatian government criminalized all those who loyally defended the country. The government simply went too far with their corruption and feared those who defended the country. They’ve done too many injustices against them and they could hardly repair the damage they caused to them without exposing themselves. Now, because of their fear, and in order to hide their shameful criminal acts, they want to get rid of all honest people who had a major role in defending the country and stopping the war in the 1990s, as well as of those who write the truth about it. They can criminalize anyone they want and we showed how they do it. For example, the government offered the indicted journalist a large sum of money to cooperate with the ICTY, which he refused. [It’s the same government that today proudly announces how their information led to the arrest of General Ante Gotovina and whom Carla Del Ponte praises for their “cooperation” – PM Sanader and President Mesic’s in particular. This government allowed her to falsely indict even the most innocent! and maintain her for so long at her position. Of course, they must jointly control everything and everyone, so to avoid the accountability for an extreme damage they’ve done to the General Gotovina, if they’re to hide their criminal enterprise against him and Croatia – and yet it cannot be hidden.]

We also tried to explain that the processes were protracted so that the criminal network established by Carla Del Ponte, the Croatian Government, and the Serb criminal such as Savo Strbac who’s affiliated with the Hague, can buy enough time to corrupt the key players on both defense and prosecution side.

They turn the accused people against each other via their lawyers (e.g., Tihomir-Blaskic case), while not allowing the indicted people a say, otherwise the latter will get a far worse penalty. So even their defenses are supposed to become part of conspiracy against the indictees, which we suspect to be the case with Gen Gotovina’s defense, too [just check the latest events on Prodanovic’s and Separovic’s role and their attacks against Gen Gotovina’s defense so to see how well we could anticipate what to expect from the Hague’s “justice,” even though, at that time, we couldn’t assess the precise players or their roles, as they hadn’t been appointed or distributed yet at a human trade market in The Hague!!] . Therefore, those whom they incriminate are in their total possession – and we don’t know what’s happening. They won’t allow any Croatian citizen close to The ICTY who’s not in their control, because they cannot risk to be discovered at their wrongdoings.

Carla Del Ponte wasn’t alone in this idea to indict the Croatians; Croatian government readily forged the documents, criminalized the people they wanted to send to The Hague (say, Carla Del Ponte “granted” to Racan government the indictment against Gen Gotovina hoping it would “suit him politically”!?). Croatian Government acted upon Carla Del Ponte’s public demands to silence the press and to discredit the indictees among their own people. (Even Voice of America reported in December 2000 how Carla Del Ponte asked from the previous Croatian government to silence the press, and there were many other examples of her pressure on media even today.) We also experienced a media ban: Not once we established the contact with the reporters in Croatia, but they were ordered by the government not to report anything about our activities, or against the ICTY, or in favor of General Ante Gotovina. This became a rule for most Croatian media in governmental control, but let me mention an example, Vecernji List!).

The Serbian war criminals such as Savo Strbac in preparing the “documentation” which actually resulted in the indictment against Gen Ante Gotovina and other Croatian generals. We had documented material on that too.

Carla Del Ponte/Florence Hartman openly congratulated to this same Serb war criminal for his “hard work this (2001) summer.”

We expressed our suspicion that Croatian Government was also cooperating with the Serb criminal Savo Strbac [en effet, this has been my suspicion, and all activities by Croatian government can only confirm it.].

What they were doing was an old Yugoslav communist practice of destroying the Croatian patriots by presenting them as criminals (in this case, those who defended the country and stopped the war should be “criminals”). Of course, we made sure that we agree that we feel the same way about communism, that it was system that was endorsing the injustices and tyranny. It’s not that democracy didn’t have its own failures [ICTY!]. We did agree (especially the Russians and the Chinese).

We could testify of the government practices / dirty campaigns from our first-hand experience. If we present the government or Croatians with the facts, the government organizes the campaigns against us and we gave a few examples how they do it. [They still practice it today, more than ever.]

We more closely demonstrated the irregularities of The Hague in the case of General Ante Gotovina as well as the journalists. There was the order of the Serbian leadership for the Serbs to leave during Operation Storm, while Croatian president invited the Serbs to stay and accept Croatia as their own homeland.

I testified from my personal experience (I was in Croatia at that time) that there was no spirit of vengeance during/after the Storm (1995), only the joy that the country was free, and the war ended. It was a period when Croatian army was the strongest and had the biggest influence in Croatia. If its military leaders were vengeful, they wouldn’t allow the government to grant the amnesty to so many Serbian criminals who participated in occupation of Croatia.

We wanted them to understand that Carla Del Ponte and Croatian Government have done too much damage to the innocent people, to the point of destroying their lives, so they won’t back up, they use all possible means to convict their victims, regardless of the truth, they forge the documentation if they need to protect themselves and convict the indicted people as “guilty.”

Quite importantly, everyone, especially the Russians and the French, did clearly agree with us that the Croatians, as everyone else, were entitled to respect their own country, the culture, the language and so on, and even defend it. What a miracle.

The absurdity of The Hague was obvious to them. They seem to have seen the Croatian government in its true light.

J.P. stressed that we regretted that we couldn’t present Croatian government with our folders and facts; everyone else had more understanding than they have. I have no such regrets: We could only get us in trouble if we tried; I gave them some examples of that.

I tried to warn our colocutors against The ICTY (the Prosecutor’s office) and stressed that The ICTY was not only unjust, but also unpredictable: After the agony Croatia underwent under the Serbian aggression, no one could have thought the ICTY would try those who defended the country and stopped the war: It was supposed to try the war criminals who attacked Croatia; the war was in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and not in Serbia, but today we see all the key Croatian military leaders indicted by The Hague. Tomorrow, those who support the ICTY may see The Hague’s prosecutors against them too. Against the US, Russia, China, France…

[The above were general points were discussed with Russian, Chinese or French representatives, depending on the time given and the flow of discussion with each of them. Follow more specifics on each country and their mood.]

RUSSIA

The Russians, who gave us 1h1/2, seemed to agree on everything we said. They would either dryly smile to the absurdities by the ICTY and Croatian government, or shake their heads, worried and thoughtful. The Russians clearly stated they were against The ICTY but they told us they were alone in the Security Council. They told us that everyone in the Security Council believed that they were opposing the ICTY because they’re “for Serbs” but it was not true, they were just against the ICTY. They repeated this twice. [Good for us, otherwise they wouldn’t like to see the fact sheets showing that the US supported the Storm, on which we also presented the material in the folder, and that the NATO bombed the Serbs because of Milosevic who led four (4) aggression wars against their neighbors, as stated in the NATO’s official justification for their bombing of Serbia.]

We asked them what we could do to solve this problem, what they would propose. They suggested that we find the contact at the senator rank in the US and lobby through him. But the State Department supports The Hague, the judge Meron re-enforced his support for the work of the ICTY and said that this “experiment” was successful. We tried everything but they’re not responding with concrete actions. We can mobilize Croatians to call the Congress but without effect, because the State Department blocks it. The Russians complained that they, too, were ignored in all their requests for information. J.P. showed them the letter with the list of recipients, which was sent to all key players who played some major role in Croatia during Croatia’s Homeland war, and none of them responded. Strange silence. The Russians said they had the same experience; they complained that they couldn’t get any information on the work of the ICTY although they, too, were sending the requests for it.

Russians then asked if we would accept to work with the Serbs so to stop the ICTY’s wrongdoings. We had a problem with this. J.P. explained that a lot of propaganda against the CWA was spread when we tried to organize the rallies for August 5 2005 (10^th anniversary of Operation Storm). The person who worked on behalf of the ruling party in Croatia (HDZ) and threatened us even with murder should we go protest in front of Croatian embassies and consulates was also quoted in media at that time claiming that Savo Strbac started rallies and paid $250,000 to the organizers [sic]… I also explained it’s when we began suspecting they’re working with people like Savo Strbac and directly with him. I learned to read from their accusations what they were doing. [The protest before Croatian authorities, and not only the international ones, was actually my idea, easily adopted by J.P. and others, at that time. I was quite proud of it on the day of these meetings.]

All in all, the cooperation with the Serbs would be a very sensitive move for us, we can be discredited and blocked in our actions, but we’re open to every possibility to work together with the Russians against the ICTY’s injustices. [J.P. was quite more open to the possibility of cooperation with the Serbs than I.] They will see how we can do it together, the Russians promised.

I tried to get the contact from the Russians, the official one, or with their journalist, with anyone whom we should read so to see how to synchronize/coordinate our actions against The Hague but they were not sure they’d tell us at this point. They promised to analyze our material; to write a report based on our discussion, and send it with a copy of our folder to Moscow, while keeping one for their top officials in the US, and then they would see what we could do together.

We agreed to follow up with them on this meeting, once they go through the documents. In any event, the possibility of cooperation was open.

According to them China is important because it will take over the Security Council; while the Secretary General is leaving this year and he cannot do anything, so we shouldn’t spare or time on him.

I asked more questions about China, how come they won’t support them in the Security Council. (Obviously, they need us to lobby before the State Department and other UN Security council members – see below about the meeting with the US). The Russian legal advisor spoke about the Chinese only with his hands – moving it from one side to another (unsure), at one point he did say they support Russian position, but he was undecipherable in what he tried to say about the Chinese. We will understand only later, when we proceed to our next meeting, with the Chinese.

[UPDATE: I no longer know what JP did to follow up with this cooperation, as she silently removed me from the organization soon afterwards, without consulting other CWA founders, but I disagreed with her subsequent initiative to remove General Gotovina’s lawyer L.M. from his defense team, and impose some others close to the Serbs, that she herself seemed to know nothing about! A few weeks later, JP mentioned to me that she received a proposal from her boss to work with someone who was defending the Serb criminal Seselj and she said she “gave it up,” when she heard my reaction!

Clearly, I don’t believe a tiny bit that J.P. made this move on the Russian initiative, but her own, and I don’t know whose else…!?. It’s also part of our disagreement soon later, as she couldn’t get the CWA’s approval for her independent action, out of CWA. In fact, I was warning her, that we may be confused with LM’s activities (we cannot know everything, naturally), but we need a concrete justification for J.P.’s  radical move, and more importantly, General Gotovina’s approval for it, and only if JP can provide us with the proof that he supports it, we’d approve of her activity. She had no his authorization, of course. I couldn’t understand how then she would dare to impose a lawyer to him (and knows nothing about him), without his own approval, if she truly respects Gen Gotovina. I kept asking JP for some concrete motives behind her “underground” activities in this area, and she could never give us any reasonable explanation! Instead, J.P. couldn’t care less about our concerns and we could no longer work together. So, she removed every trace of me from the organization, and probably continued to conspire against L.M. so to incriminate him in the US promising that she would even take away his license to practice law. Of this conspiracy against L.M., out of CWA’s span of activities, she told me very little, only before she would realize that I pose a problem to her campaign. Thus,  J.P. wrote to me one last message, criticizing me and stating that my questioning of her activities bother her too much (in spite of her promise that we would be deciding on everything together), but it was just after I firmly requested (over the phone) a justification for her activities. It’s not that I myself knew what L.M. was doing, was it good for the General or not; but I wouldn’t risk to make decision about something I have no the authorization for! Thus, J.P. removed me from CWA, and, of course, I was fine with that, as it became clear that she would no longer consult with me about her activities. It was just about the same time I myself begun to realize some games around General Gotovina’s case…. I found my own path out of CWA anyway. Yet, I did leave CWA more silently than I should have, hoping that J.P. wouldn’t go too far with her conspiracies, and would do something useful with Domagoj Margetic...]

[After the meeting with the Russians, I reminded J.P., we want to hear more from them, we must know where they stand so to decide about future actions; it wasn’t enough that we speak. For the first time, my friend J.P. wasn’t upset with me as lately because “I’m always questioning everything with CWA”…. We even laughed at this, but obviously, not for long….]

CHINA

No one knew about our meeting when we came to the Chinese mission. So J.P. played back her voice mail message by the Chinese diplomat when he returned her call, which she recorded prior to setting the meeting with him. Fine, they realized who was to meet with us, but he wasn’t there, although the Chinese mission was the meeting place they agreed upon. So they found him in the main UN building – in another quarter of the city - he couldn’t come here, and we couldn’t go there because we couldn’t enter the main UN building without the UN pass. We had no idea we needed the UN pass for that building; J.P. argued that she arranged the meeting at the Chinese mission, not at the main UN building…. Soon we received the message: No problem, he’d meet with us, outside the main UN building. We went there. We started waving and rushing towards a well dressed Chinese diplomat with a business bag in his hand, whom we spotted on the opposite corner of the street, walking up and down, as he were looking for someone, a bit nervous. It was indeed the person we were supposed to meet with. We held the meeting (almost ½ h) outside the large iron UN fence, the rain was beginning to fall. We managed to tell him most of the above general points, and wouldn’t let him go until he tells us what we can do about the problems we presented him with. This is also a humanitarian issue, I stressed. Who else will take care of that if not the UN, I asked. He looked a bit insecure.

Then, the Chinese representative at the Security Council said very clearly, the problem in resolving the ICTY’s injustices we were talking about was the Croatian Government. If the Chinese government (or any other that was the UN member) presented the appropriate authorities at the UN with these injustices – they would run into trouble if the Croatian government doesn’t support it. Croatian government should actually initiate it, he explained. Were the Chinese to do something on their own initiative, the problem would be, obviously, the anticipated Croatia’s opposition as the Croatian government supports Carla Del Ponte. They’re not supposed to go ahead against the will of Croatian government, because Croatia is a UN member.

Yet, as he agreed that the injustices we presented him with were scandalous, I went ahead and proposed him to put the Croatian government on the table – someone has to stop these injustices. We promised the CWA would support them against the Croatian government too (we have power to mobilize people to lobby before the authorities). So, this tyranny and injustice will be stopped. He was nodding with his head and revealed to us that they’re working on this issue; they will see what they can do.

My personal feeling was that he wasn’t too comfortable with our corruption theme against Croatian government, which we presented as one of the major causes for all these injustices to be happening in coop with the ICTY, but I may be wrong. Perhaps he didn’t want to intervene with Croatian internal affairs, but he clearly disagreed with the ICTY’s wrongdoings, and seemed to be quite aware of that.

He did promise they will look into all this and see what they can do. We made sure we’d follow up on the outcomes after they analyze the presented material. He also got 2 copies of the folders.

Hence, this is what the Russians meant, when we discussed the Chinese coop. We had to hold the meeting with the Chinese diplomat at an unexpected location, and it might have been even canceled in the last minute, but it wasn’t, who’d stop us! I believe all security guards around us, as well as the passer-bys, were thinking that a super-conspiracy has been taking place on that corner of the street. Indeed an amusing scene, but a pretty successful one.  We found out who’s the main obstacle to stopping the ICTY’s injustices. The very Croatian government! My suspicion about the Croatian government’s conspiracy against Croatian heroes proved, once again, to be true!

BRITAIN

There was a couple of hours until our next meeting with the US reps in another quarter of the NYC. So we could visit the British they wanted or not. We took a short break to refresh ourselves. J.P. composed the message for the British to let them know how sorry CWA was because they couldn’t meet with us, but we’d leave them the folders in anticipation of positive cooperation and kiss-kiss... (their British ass). We didn’t want to leave the message and the folders at the reception, as advised, and at least they would let us upstairs, up to their security check-up. At least the folders were given directly to the person who works for the officials we wanted to meet with. J.P. reminded them that they’re the only ones who didn’t want to meet with us (scandalous from the point of view of a Democrat), but they apologized for that given their busy schedules on that day. That’s okay; no one has the same schedule… All’s fine. We got it. It’s how “far” we got with the British.

US

No precise meeting was confirmed with the US rep in Security Council, we were just said to come and they’d find someone in this area of expertise [the ICTY]. However, it appeared that their expert wasn’t allowed to meet with us. Still, we were received by the person in charge of communications through whom J.P. tried to arrange the meeting. J.P. complained how she’s the American and the Americans won’t give us the meeting while all other countries’ reps will, so this is how she obtained their promise that they’d find someone to meet with us. But they didn’t find anyone. They tried, but they were denied their request by the State Department! Still, the communication person would meet us. Fine enough.

We had no pass, but unlike the Chinese, the Americans provided us with everything on the spot. First we got some stickers with our names and information to get through the main reception. Once up there in the offices, we went through all scrutiny of security clearance, which seemed to be more careful than that on the US airports. Our IDs entered into computers, our photos taken and the pass with them attached on our suits…. I love their efficiency; I still have a weak spot for their professionalism.

All was good except that this procedure lasted quite longer than our actual meeting. As soon as it was my turn to be ‘screened’ – my ID entered into their computers, the security person raised his eyes smiling: “You’re back.” “Yes” – I was surprised not knowing what else to say. [Well, they should have remembered me somewhere in the US: the US army, Navy and DOD as well as War college gave me at least 5-6 of their defense certificates, and offered not once a closer cooperation and the education while I was in Croatia…. I put it all behind me, trying to start anew… precisely because of the Croatian government’s treason and their anti-democratic, communist-style tyranny against all decent Croatians, and everything we believed in… This was a nice reminder…]

J.P. began speaking to the American as to her own, passionately and patriotically and energetically and she almost began to cry. It was an un-American thing to allow all those injustices, she said. Yes, he was watching us, his eyes were honest and sad at the moments, I thought he would cry, too, but his duty would bring him back from his sad thoughts and he suddenly cut her off. It’s the State Department issue; he concluded our meeting in less than 7-8 minutes. But we tried everything – no one responded, and J.P. pointed to the letter in the folder which was sent to all those important Americans who played some role in Croatia (which she was showing to everyone else, by the way). Again he clarified he worked for the State Department, it was their issue, and he was getting up showing us the way out. I love the authority, he just got the best out of me with that gesture, while J.P. was about to cry, her head down. I wouldn’t leave just like that until he told us what we can do against the ICTY’s injustices. "You’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing,” this is his exact reply. I was stupefied, I wasn’t sure if he knew what I was doing lately, so I wanted to make sure he showed me some light in the tunnel, I asked:  What exactly should we be doing to stop this injustice. He softened a bit and became a little more precise, “just continue to do what you’ve been doing” [to press them for the meetings?; to lobby at State Department?; and all that stuff we told him we were doing in vain.]. Sure, we will continue. We left feeling sorry for both him and us, as if there were some conspiracy around there and we all wanted but couldn’t stop it…

There was a pharmacy nearby, we needed the lighter, and J.P. began to cry. I tried to convince her, all was good. At least we saw, something weird has been going on between that office and the State Department. We were not even supposed to be there, which was the position of the SD, but he received us, he took our folders, and he will send them to the SD. Good enough. We got a sense of an even greater conspiracy going on there than with the Chinese on the corner of the street. We just feared our meeting with French would go even shorter, and I proposed we get ready to say all key things in the first 5 minutes. However…

FRANCE

As we went back to a different quartier to meet the French, only then we realized they were in the same building with the British (the address is different because they use different corners to enter the building, interesting isn’t it. They’re not using the same entrance! Hahaha).

We cried the same river of tears about the ICTY’s and Croatian Governemnt’s injustices in front of the French lady, a 15 year career diplomat, same as with Russians and Chinese, but the flow was quite different, with many unpredictable falls and rises. I just love the French!

Unlike the Russians, who were reserved, but more direct about their opposition to the ICTY, compared to the French; or the Chinese who was nearly trembling with us under the drops of rain at the unusual meeting place; or the American, who acted as he were hiding all the secrets about the end of the world in his focused, wide open, but unreachable eyes; or the British deep in their offices who wouldn’t even come out, but would sent forth only their smiling artifices of no use to us; the French lady comfortably and pretty honestly engaged in a real discussion.

J.P. started with the journalist issue, and I expanded it on The Hague as a whole. Discussion was more personal. We felt like the witnesses to whom she listened with sincere compassion and worry. They in The Hague love personal testimonies, don’t they. She’s their lady, but still a professional who was on her own, looking for the truth.

But the argument about the damage the ICTY is causing not only to the stability and the security of Croatia, but also to the reputation and moral of the French army, given Gen Gotovina was also a French soldier, was first met with a negative attitude towards all the armies, including her own. This was an anti-war lady.

She said a few things on the French perception [that the ICTY was trying to create] regarding General Gotovina, and then something about her own country: “We are not proud of all that French army was doing in the past…” She mentioned violence, and how they [the French!] were doing wrong things too. [but the French are not prosecuted by the ICTY!? Or not yet?] She disclosed: They [at the UN?] have the project they’re working on so to bring up such issues. She mentioned Madagascar and some other examples that escaped to my memory by now.

All together, she said enough to cause a backfire on my part. [J.P.  told me later she was scared that I wouldn’t stop and would fight with her, but she was relieved as it only opened a real discussion, in which I didn’t forget to let  JP speak, from her US Democrat positions, probably closer to this lady than the Republican ones to which I was more inclined at that time...] I told the French lady we were against the violence; I hate the violence myself; and that I read a little bit about the French army and what she was talking about in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal… This must have been a nice surprise to her, as she couldn’t hide her frustration with the Americans and will “love” to hear that the hated pro-American/pro-Bush WSJ is also bringing her anti-French issues up! I should have brought her the article about it!

Then I made sure she understood that Croatian General Ante Gotovina was not a “war criminal” – it’s what The Hague and Croatian government made him into, but they lie. While listening, she marked some pages in the folder, including those showing the Serbian leadership ordered the evacuation of the Serbs during the Storm, which we also stressed.

I told her it was an armed conflict; around 150 Croatians were killed during operation, around 1,500 wounded, 10,000 Croatians previously cleansed from the region before Operation started…. there was an army of 100,000 troops made up of many inexperienced soldiers.

The Americans I worked with after the Storm confirmed there was no Croatian army in 1991, it was built out of scratch, and only devotion of Crotian people who mobilized into defense saved the country and stopped the war (and made Dayton agreement possible, which was J.P’s theme). These facts were presented officially in the Long Range Management Project run with the Americans, to the Croatian leadership; and in Brussels, Washington and elsewhere.

As for the incidents, I tried to explain her that Gen Gotovina did respect the rules and informed his soldiers about them (J.P. then  mentioned a video recording proving this), but she had to understand that not everyone was a real soldier, and not everyone was for the army, the incidents in such a large-scale operation had to happen and General Ante Gotovina couldn’t control everything.

Serbian tanks were running over their own civilians while their Yugoslav army was withdrawing, some Serbs remained and still fought against Croatians and continued massacres, and so on and on.

Gen Gotovina requested that all those who did commit crimes be prosecuted and there were about 3 thousands cases that were prosecuted.

J.P. jumped in with data on Serbian massacres in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which were stopped by Operation Storm, and asked how she could have expected that Croatian Army was perfect, faced with such a horrible aggressor! Croatians have to be perfect, even J.P. was getting upset. (J.P. was harder on Americans, who are her own and thus upset with their lack of action against the ICTY; as I was harder on French, for some reason…. I was softer with the Americans while she was able to be softer with the French; but it worked out well. We remained determined as to what we wanted. There could be no compromise with such injustices.)

The French lady changed the story. But he (General) is still responsible, she said. I asked her to take it to the personal level and imagine I had a child and my child [or her child] commits a crime [God forbid] – would I be responsible? She said - yes. I asked, what if my child were 25. I would be only very unhappy and sad, I would wonder what I did wrong during the upbringing of that child, but I wouldn’t be guilty.

She still maintained her point that I would still be responsible; although she was becoming insecure and I had a feeling she didn’t believe herself what she was saying. She probably realized they have a problem with their concept.

For any case, I made it clear we’d NEVER accept these injustices against General Gotovina

This is not a precise order of discussion, but she also mentioned somewhere the WWII.

I explained her that Croatian General Ante Gotovina said for Croatian media once that his war was not the WWII but the Homeland war. I also told her about 90% of Serbs in diplomacy during Yugoslavia who were writing our “history” and saying the false stories against Croatians for 50 years, while the evidence shows that rather they were pro-Nazi; how come they’re “clean”.. I also mentioned that I began a research on this, and today’s Serbian anti-Semitism which I might complete one day [but then I had some other priorities …]. The Serbs were obviously working against Croatians and they were in position, through their connections built over 50 years of communist/Stalinist/Titoist reign, to present us the way they liked, and of course they’d present us in a bad light. She seemed to have understood and nodded on this.

We discussed in detail our Croatian government and how they participate in criminalizing the people they pick up for their victims (as described in general points, above). We took it all down to the root of the problem, to the communist/Stalinist, anti-democratic practice still in place.

The French diplomatic lady finally agreed with us saying that we had the right to our own culture, history, tradition, language…. And even the right to defense!!!

She seemed to be honesty worried about our evidence on criminal network by Carla del Ponte, Government in Croatia and who knows who else, given they don’t let any Croatian to approach the general if there’s even a slight disagreement with Carla del Ponte or Croatian government.

Now she also knows that Sanader (Croatian PM) told me once ‘the heads will fall’ when we requested that he does something against these injustices, about 3 years ago. She seemed to be shocked at this, and didn’t understand so I had to tell her in French what our PM said: “Les têtes vont tomber.” This is why we’re speaking to her, and not to the Croatian government.

J.P. as usual expressed her regret that we couldn’t present Croatian Government/ Croatian UN mission with all these facts and the folders demonstrating injustices toward the journalists and the generals. [Again, I had no such regrets as I have already learned more than well what we could expect from the Croatian government.]

We were able to go to much greater extent with her in this area than with both Russians and Chinese. She seemed to be concerned with the governmental suppression of all freedoms in such tyrannical ways.

She asked several times through our discussion, how The Hague/Carla Del Ponte (or Croatian gov’t for that matter) could interfere with such things as silencing the press, or requesting that the indictees be discredited among their own people. “Why are they doing this,” “They’re not supposed to be doing this,” she would reply.

Finally someone normal to whom such practices are not acceptable!

She appeared to be honestly disappointed by what she learned about Carla Del Ponte and Croatian government. She obviously dropped her conviction that she started with, regarding “war criminal” statement and she didn’t mention it again. We looked for the solutions.

She asked us why we didn’t go to testify in The Hague.

We reiterated that the access was blocked to all Croatians who oppose this injustice. Everything is controlled …. J.P. gave the example of a 25 year friend of General Gotovina who was recently forbidden to visit him, and he gave us the authorization via D.M. to mention this issue. She looked up with a real interest and seemed quite understanding; normally she’d look down and browse through the folder for most of time.

We wanted to hear from her what we can do and solve this problem.

She explained that JUSTICE COMMITTEE in France had more power than those people in The Hague, and they’re really powerful and can do something (but she mentioned speeding up the processes, which is not what we want, we want them to be discarded! And I wouldn’t give up this position!).

I had a feeling they, esp. the Justice Committee, to whom she appeared to be closer, were frustrated with the Hague’s judges, although she wouldn’t go as far as to admit that all that criminal enterprise should be terminated. She was actually the most worried when we said that Florence Hartman stated that the ICTY would finish the work by 2008/2009 even if the Serb war criminals, Mladic and Karadzic are not there – “how could she have said that,” the French diplomat was truly disturbed. She obviously wanted Mladic and Karadzic to be captured. Be it whichever way, this doesn’t solve our problem. Our innocent people are still indicted, which is why we’re there.

She advised us also to turn to International Justice Tribune [we had an article from them in our folder, which is dealing with the journalists]; and Article 19 in London/Britain (this should be about the journalists also), to Human Rights Watch; to Journalists without Borders (our friend in Croatia, the indicted journalist, is dealing with them already); and to the Office of the Prosecutor! But this latter, she probably had to say because that’s her job to support them?. Hard to know. We will, we said. But we will never accept this injustice, I made it clear. And she looked up at me, serious, not at all hostile but rather as if she realized it couldn’t be otherwise.

She also wanted to know about Gen Gotovina’s position at some point through our conversation – “but he’s respecting …[The Hague],” She started to speak in low voice, confusedly, without clearly stating what she meant. We got it. We said we didn’t know anything about his positions and if he agreed with our approach, since all information about him is controlled and blocked. We don’t know what’s going on inside. We don’t know how things are with him in The Hague. All access to him by his friends is blocked. But we know it’s unjust and wrong; there’s practically a criminal enterprise against him at work.

We opened up too: We also said we don’t blame anyone as much as Croatian government given we don’t know all that Croatian government is saying for years now to the international community so to make them hunt the innocent people. I stated that we wanted to work closer with the French [she shouldn’t misunderstand my website that I’m only pro-American; we made clear we will work with anyone who will help us to stop this injustice.]

Finally, as we were getting up so to leave (after 1h and 15 minutes long conversation) we asked her what we could do to correct the injustice at least in those two cases we can vouch for – in the case of Gen Ante Gotovina and the journalists. She opened up completely as we were leaving. Very polite, even smiling. she said “The Hague knows about you.” ‘They knew we were meeting.’ ‘“We’re in contact with them and they’re coming to the NYC. We will speak to them,” she said. (This perhaps also explains why the wile coyotes, if you ever watched that cartoon, were busy in Sanader’s service and writing idiotic posts against us on Croatian boards while we were in NYC! Croatian government knows about our meetings too!?). While leaving, I even asked her to send our regards to our friends in The Hague. I first meant “friends” (the ICTY prosecutors and those she’s speaking to), but it will be good if she says hello to our General too, which is how she seem to have understood it. Great! It’s what we prefer!

[The meetings didn’t go in this precise order; these were actually the draft notes for our internal report, written so that we don’t forget some details.  I invited JP to add her inputs too, but apart from saying that it was excellent, and distributing its first draft without my authorization, she never added anything from her side – and soon she removed me from the organization. This “American Democrat” “followed up” on all this in a strange enough, hadn’t she....]

IA

Mtl., 10 Apr 2006

[Updated 03 Jul 2007]

Special thanks once again to the UN SECURITY COUNCIL REPs who accorded us the meetings and to all Croatians and friends who contributed to the topics of these meetings in direct or any other way, then as now. [and please follow up!]