GOTOVINA HUNT BRINGS FAR RIGHT OUT OF THE WOODWORK

C O N F I D E N T I A L ZAGREB 000418

SIPDIS


DEPT FOR EUR/SCE - KABUMOTO, BENEDICT

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/14/2015
TAGS: PGOV PREL KAWC HR
SUBJECT: GOTOVINA HUNT BRINGS FAR RIGHT OUT OF THE WOODWORK

REF: A. ZAGREB 173


B. 04 ZAGREB 2207

Classified By: Classified By: Ambassador Ralph Frank for reasons 1.5 (b
) & (d).


1. (C) SUMMARY AND COMMENT: As March 17 looms and pressure to
apprehend Gotovina builds, Croatia's small but vocal far
right-wing has again found its voice, loudly protesting what
it sees as foreign interference in domestic issues. The
several recent poster campaigns supporting the fugitive
general and renewed anti-ICTY rhetoric help illustrate why
the will of PM Ivo Sanader to comply with international
demands has not led to Gotovina's arrest.


2. (C) While significant, this resurgence of the far right
should not be exaggerated. All credible political parties
remain solidly focused on reform and EU integration. The
real question lies in how the parties will respond to these
anti-European attitudes, particularly the ruling Croatian
Democratic Union (HDZ),where right-leaning members feel
frustrated with a party that has made huge concessions which
the EU has seemingly failed to recognize or reward. A more
moderate and rational approach across the political spectrum,
such as that advocated by President Mesic, would ensure these
isolationist attitudes do not lure in a wider public equally
frustrated by the imminent postponement of EU entry talks,
now a symbol of Croatia's only future.


3. (C) President Stjepan Mesic made the first move in his
televised March 10 address to the nation, saying a date is
less important than Croatia's lasting commitment to reaching
EU standards and ultimately membership. He warned against
radical elements who "seek to isolate Croatia for their own
political purposes." Similar reactions from major opposition
parties would be a welcome step toward calming an agitated
public. However, opposition leaders may be unlikely to help
the ruling HDZ just two months before hotly contested local
elections. Mesic's statement may push them to make their
contribution. END SUMMARY AND COMMENT.

HMMM, WHICH TO GIVE UP ) ANTE OR THE EU?
--------------


3. (U) The "St. Patrick,s Day Fever" surrounding the
scheduled March 17 start of EU negotiations has confused the
Croatian public as they are repeatedly presented in the media
with a choice between the fugitive general and the EU. While
polls vary in their reliability and tend to oversimplify the
issue, the majority of respondents, when asked to choose
between "surrendering" Gotovina and starting EU talks, favor
protecting the war crimes suspect over guaranteeing the
country's European future.


4. (U) A recent poll commissioned by the daily newspaper
Jutarnji List showed that a majority of HDZ voters oppose
efforts to locate and arrest Gotovina, and only a small
minority said they would notify the police if they saw him
(following Deputy PM Jadranka Kosor's dramatic example in ref
A). Regardless of Gotovina, accession to the EU now gets
less than a 50-percent support in Croatia. This latest
upsurge of Euro-skepticism has provided a soap-box for a
number of far right-wing groups.

VETERANS DEFENDING THE HOMELAND DEFENDERS
--------------


5. (U) Veterans' groups, representing several hundred
thousand members, top the list of opponents to Gotovina's
extradition. Two southern branches of HVIDRA, a leading
association for disabled war veterans, gathered on February
25 in the coastal city of Zadar to discuss "the truth about
the Homeland War." The event turned into a pro-Gotovina
rally. At the same time HVIDRA President and HDZ MP Josip
Djakic said that Gotovina should go to The Hague to present
his case. The rumble of protests prompted Djakic to later
claim that he had meant that ICTY investigators should
interview Gotovina in Croatia.


6. (C) On March 8, Djakic told PolOff he fears that if
current tensions continue he will have to choose between
HVIDRA and the HDZ. Like most veterans, he said he is
particularly aggravated by the part of the ICTY indictment
that charges Gotovina with engaging in a joint criminal
enterprise, "a charge that incriminates the whole nation
which only fought for freedom." Djakic told us he believes
most veterans' groups will now move farther to the right to
support other parties, especially the Croatian Party of
Rights (HSP).


7. (U) The Zadar convention prompted other veterans' groups
to take a stand. Members of a committee representing 37 war
veterans' associations from Dalmatia held their own "truth

and peace" convention in Knin March 12. The group put up a
small Gotovina billboard outside a caf, announcing that they
were sending "a serious warning to Croatian authorities and
particularly to all foreign blackmailers." The committee
said that "Only Croats have the right to decide in what
direction Croatia will go (and) who they will celebrate as
their hero."


8. (U) Likewise, retired colonel Mirko Condic, who used to
lead mass protests with HDZ help against the former
left-of-center government over its cooperation with the ICTY,
announced March 1 that he is pondering formation of a new
political party that would include a "military wing" and
would "defend the true interests of the Croatian veterans and
guard the dignity of the Homeland War." President Mesic
discarded this initiative as irrelevant because Condic has
been abandoned by the HDZ, his real source of influence.
When asked in Parliament on March 9 to comment on Condic's
announcement, PM Sanader said his idea was "undemocratic and
unacceptable" and his political work "disputable."

RIGHT-WING INTELLECTUALS WEIGH IN
--------------


9. (U) At a different venue, but in a similar atmosphere, a
group of conservative intellectuals convened on February 28
in Zagreb to adopt a "Declaration on the State of Croatian
Nation and Culture." This group complained that Croatian
culture was dominated by individuals with views "contrary to
the Croatian tradition" who "work day and night to destroy
the Croatian cultural identity." Similarly, they protested
what they viewed as disrespect for the Croatian language and
its classics, falsification of Croatian history and attempts
to downplay the events and figures that are essential for the
survival of the Croatian people. The group includes some
fifty academicians, writers, painters, journalists and
clerics, some of whom are past or present HDZ members. Their
informal leader is Igor Zidic, President of the Matica
Hrvatska cultural organization, who warned with
characteristic Euro-skepticism about the "slave-like
position" of Croatia in the EU, a mere "commercial company"
where "big stockholders with colonial appetites dictate terms
to the small ones.8

BELLWETHER PARTY OF RIGHTS STILL LEANING TOWARD THE CENTER
-------------- --------------


10. (SBU) An encouraging sign that the far right remains in
check is the stance of the HSP, which just to the right of
the HDZ stands to gain in any shift of the conservative voter
base, having already surpassed the centrist Croatian People's
Party (HNS) in some polls as the nation's third largest
party. According to recently-recruited advisor Mate Granic,
former HDZ Deputy PM and Foreign Minister, the HSP continues
to re-make its image into that of a modern conservative party
"fully based on European values," along the lines of
Germany's CDU or the Austrian People's Party. Shunning its
black-shirted past, the party is planning a visit for HSP
President Anto Djapic to Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, where he will
condemn the Ustashe,s WWII crimes.
FRANK


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