America, The Hague, and Ante Gotovina
Harris, Robin
America, The Hague, and Ante Gotovina The railroading of a former U.S. ally. BY ROBIN HARRIS BEAT POWERS LIKE AMERICA CANNOT AFFORD t o b e t o o s e n t i m e n t a l about foreign...
...BY ROBIN HARRIS BEAT POWERS LIKE AMERICA CANNOT AFFORD t o b e t o o s e n - t i m e n t a l about foreign friends whose purpose has been served...
...The Pentagon knew, because approved U.S...
...You can't deport people who have already left...
...Aptly for a man whose name translates as "Tony Cash," Ante Gotovina had a high price on his head--S5 million from the U.S...
...When he was arrested three months later, Gotovina's passports revealed t h a t he had been in Tahiti, Argentina, Chile, China, Russia, the Czech Republic, Mauritania, and Mauritius, but not Croatia...
...The ICTY chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, claimed that she "knew" he was in Croatia...
...The military operation, "Storm," conducted by Croatia in early August 1995 to recover territory, the so-called Serb Republic of Krajina (SRIO, occupied by rebel Serbs supported by Belgrade, was an act not of aggression but of self-defense...
...The UN "safe areas" in Srebrenica and Zepa had fallen, Thousands of Muslim men and boys MARCH 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 15 AMERICA, THE HAGUE, AND ANTE GOTOVINA were being massacred...
...certainly encouraged, assisted, and monitored "Storm" at every stage...
...But the exodus was ordered by the Serb leadership itself, for its own reasons...
...Since the breakup of Yugoslavia, the British Foreign Office has pursued a policy consistently favorable to Belgrade and hostile to Croatia and Bosnia...
...It will have its intelligence methods and sources embarrassingly revealed...
...In September 14 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 2006 2005, she also knew that the Vatican "knew" exactly which Croatian monastery he was in...
...This is particularly so when those concerned know the ms]de story of U.S...
...The fall of Biha~ would not only have created another humanitarian tragedy...
...But unlike the butchers of Sarajevo and Srebrenica, Gotovina is not accused of ordering anyone's murder, let alone genocide...
...Within 72 hours Krajina was re-occupied...
...It was a minor military triumph, a textbook NATO-style operation based on overwhelming firepower, real time intelligence, efficient logistic support, and the avoidance of civilian casualties...
...They are also in the widest sense politically motivated...
...Britain has been the main block to Croatia's bid for EU membership...
...Despite these facts, which are not contested, Gotovina is now accused by the court of a series of crimes which could result in his lengthy incarceration...
...This turned out to be completely wrong...
...The indictment mentions 150 Serb civilians as having die& These deaths were caused by Croat civilians bent on revenge, while Croatian police did nothing to help...
...military advisers were involved...
...policy t o create a Croatian-Bosnian military alliance to roll back Serb territorial gains, so as to make a just peace possible...
...It suits many international interests to place aggressors and victims of aggression on an equal footing when rewriting the history of recent Balkan wars...
...The implication that all sides were equally to blame goes some way towards vindicating the egregious policy failures of the European Union and particularly Britain...
...It would have put the seal of victory on Serb aggression and prevented a viable Bosnia from surviving...
...He had been on the run since 2001, when he was first indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY...
...But it happened after the conclusion of the military campaign, not during it...
...The explanation lies in the opening section of the indictment...
...Only in these circumstances was "Storm" finally launched...
...He had a shrewd idea that he would never gain a fair trial...
...Gotovina's arrest was widely welcomed...
...So there is more at stake in The Hague than the rights of Tony Cash...
...Britain and France had vetoed America's plan to lift the arms embargo against Bosnia and to launch air strikes at Serb forces...
...16 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MARCH 2006...
...Gotovina was also no fool...
...But sometimes it pays to keep faith with individuals who collaborate successfully in one's policy goals...
...clearly by Peter Galbraith, U.S...
...Or more precisely he "appeared" wherever it was convenient to locate him...
...America, The Hague, and Ante Gotovina The railroading of a former U.S...
...The military evacuation was designed to retrieve heavy armor to be used in Bosnia...
...One should recall the dire position...
...But why the civilians...
...It is nowvery keen to see Gotovina sentenced...
...Whether the Croatian government was pleased or displeased to see the Serb exodus is unclear...
...But there were other motivations too...
...It will be exposed as an unreliable sponsor of potential surrogates in areas where it wants to exert influence...
...Even the Croatian government was delighted, since the failure to apprehend him had served as a reason, or excuse, to delay Croatian membership of the European Union...
...Such is the case of the former Croatian General Ante Gotovina, arrested in Tenerife in December for alleged war crimes and now in prison at The Hague...
...The White House and the State Department knew, because since the previous year's Washington Agreement it had been U.S...
...So he disappeared...
...He writes on the Balkans and is the author ofDubrovnik: A History (London: Saqi, 2003...
...It was endorsed by the SRK military chief, General Mile Mrkgi~, an appointee of Milogevi...
...At different times a French legionary, soldier of fortune in South America, "muscle" in the political underworld of Paris, he was the kind of shady swashbuckler that the world of NGOs, diplomats, and international lawyers loves to hate...
...ambassador to Croatia at the time: "The fact is, the [Serb] population left before the Croatian army got there...
...He had joined Muslim and Croat forces in the continuing campaign within Bosnia...
...That was, indeed, shameful...
...The answer makes complete sense in Balkan terms...
...The CIA knew what was happening, because it had provided the intelligence and technical support to make it happen...
...This, it was hoped, would make it easier to arrest Karad~i~ and Mladi~, both still at large...
...State Department alone...
...Above all, another strategically vital "safe area" at Biha~ in northwest Bosnia was under attack by Serb forces from Bosnia and from the SILK...
...The question, though, is: I f "Storm" was indeed a "criminal enterprise," were high officials of the United States not also morally, and even criminally, culpable...
...Its successful intervention to end the Bosnian war will be effectively criminalized...
...His name was uttered in the same breath as those of Radovan Karad~i~ and Ratko Mladi...
...The text of the order from Milan Martiq, so-called president of the SRK, was published some weeks later in the Belgrade journal Politika...
...After four years of aggression, Greater Serbia had come to occupy 70 percent of Bosnia and a third of Croatia...
...The various accounts of what happened--official and unofficial-make that crystal clear...
...But whatever Tudjman and others felt is irrelevant...
...President Pranjo Tudjman had ambiguous feelings about the Serbs, as opposed to Muslims, whom he despised...
...A less satisfactory result of"Storm" was the mass departure of the Serb population-probably between 80,000 and 150,000 people-from the area...
...Yet the U.S...
...Gotovina himself was no longer even in the area...
...T HE CHARGES AGAINST GOTOVINA are baseless...
...As Croatian and Muslim armies then attacked Serb forces inside Bosnia and U.S.-led NATO air strikes broke Serbia's will to resist, the outlines of a new, imposed peace settlement emerged...
...This describes Operation "Storm" as part of a "joint criminal enterprise, the common purpose of which was the forcible and permanent removal of the Serb population from the Krajina region...
...N Robin Harris was a member of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Policy Unit...
...Sarajevo was under continuous siege...
...It was to advance Belgrade's policies of ethnic cleansing and re-settlement of Serbs in eastern Bosnia and Kosovo, parts of a planned Greater Serbia...
...Accounts given in evidence before the ICTY show exactly how the Krajina Serbs were funneled down to these areas...
...interventions can safely be conducted at all...
...The United States does not participate in or close its eyes to war crimes...
...On top of all that, if it is finally established that commanders of legitimate operations which incidentally lead to the exodus of civilian populations can be tried as participants in a criminal enterprise, it is difficult to see how future U.S...
...N FACT, EVEN TO POSE THE QUESTION exposes the foolishness and injustice of the case...
...Responsibility for maintaining order had been formally transferred by the Croatian government from the military to the civil authorities...
...Gotovina was made for the role of international ogre...
...personnel...
...By now, though, Gotovina was notorious...
...Britain is also a leading proponent of universal international jurisdiction, of which the ICTY was the forbear and the International Criminal Court is the full expression...
...that November was, it has since brought peace, reconstruction, and some return of refugees...
...The indictment alleges that this was the whole purpose of the operation...
...They were brought primarily because the ICTY needed to prove to Serb opinion that it was not biased against Serbia...
...covert actlwty and when their fate sets a precedent that jeopardizes U.S...
...The point has been made very...
...The main loser from this trial--apart from Gotovina is the United States...
...Flawed as the Dayton Agreement of It suits many international interests to place aggressors and victims of aggression on an equal footing when rewriting the history of recent Balkan wars...
Vol. 39 • March 2006 • No. 2
