Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05ZAGREB590
2005-04-14 05:49:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Zagreb
Cable title:  

USG REHABILITATING MASS MURDERER? - AMBASSADOR

Tags:  PREL PGOV SR HR 
pdf how-to read a cable
This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
C O N F I D E N T I A L ZAGREB 000590 

SIPDIS


DEPT FOR EUR/FO - DAS STEPHENS
EUR/SCE - ENGLISH, GAUDIOSI, KABUMOTO, BENEDICT

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/12/2015
TAGS: PREL PGOV SR HR
SUBJECT: USG REHABILITATING MASS MURDERER? - AMBASSADOR
GETS BOTH BARRELS OVER MIHAILOVIC MEDAL

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

C O N F I D E N T I A L ZAGREB 000590

SIPDIS


DEPT FOR EUR/FO - DAS STEPHENS
EUR/SCE - ENGLISH, GAUDIOSI, KABUMOTO, BENEDICT

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/12/2015
TAGS: PREL PGOV SR HR
SUBJECT: USG REHABILITATING MASS MURDERER? - AMBASSADOR
GETS BOTH BARRELS OVER MIHAILOVIC MEDAL

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


1. (U) This is an action request. Please see para 4.


2. (C) SUMMARY AND COMMENT: Both President Stjepan Mesic
and PM Ivo Sanader have called in Ambassador Frank in the
past 24 hours to express grave concern over press reports
of a planned U.S. presentation of the Legion of Merit (LoM)
medal awarded posthumously to Draza Mihailovic, leader of
the WWII Serbian Chetnik Movement. Referring in separate
meetings to the Chetnik Movement's involvement in mass
killings of non-Serbians and documented collaboration with
Nazi forces, Mesic and Sanader each warned that presentation
of the LoM would cause major problems in the region. The
USG will redefine history and rehabilitate Mihailovic with
the LoM, they said, feeding the fires of nationalism in both
Serbia and Croatia. Both hoped the USG, which has played a
key role in establishing and maintaining peace in the region
for the past 10 years, would recognize the dangers of
reviving the ghosts of the past.


3. (C) Resurrection of this issue now only threatens
Sanader's
efforts to manage the hard right wing of his party and
undermines the significant efforts of both Mesic and Sanader
to acknowledge and close the fascist chapter in Croatian
history. END SUMMARY AND COMMENT.


4. (C) ACTION REQUEST: Post requests that the Department
seriously revisit the costs and benefits of delivering the
Mihailovic LoM, weighing carefully the advantages to the
USG, if any, against definite negative repercussions for
political stability in the region. END ACTION REQUEST.

TATTOO TROUBLE: EXTREME SENSITIVITY OVER MIHAILOVIC
-------------- --------------


5. (C) Croatians believe the Serbian occupation of Croatia
during the 91-95 war was based on Chetnik principles )
turning 60-year-old scars into open wounds. For the GoC,
veneration of the Chetnik leader cuts close to the bone.
In November 2004, the Ministry of Interior banned Serbian
basketball player Milan Gurovic from entering the country,
describing his upper-arm tattoo of Mihailovic as hate
speech. Two Serbian students were later convicted of
"insulting public morality" after displaying a Mihailovic
picture on Zagreb's main square in reaction to the ban.


6. (C) Sanader, who has taken significant political risk
to remove monuments to members of Croatia's own WWII
fascist regime, clearly fears the likely response to the
Mihailovic LoM from the right wing, both within and
outside his party. Parliament had scheduled a debate
this week on the Mihailovic medal, threatening to
escalate rhetoric on the issue, but the PM told the
Ambassador that he personally intervened and directed
President of Parliament Vladimir Seks to remove it from
the agenda and to adjourn until after local elections on
May 15, by which time he hopes this issue will be closed.

RARE UNITED FRONT FROM PRESIDENT AND PM
--------------


7. (C) Sanader carefully coordinated his demarche with
Mesic and the two used many of the same talking points,
a telling sign that these traditional rivals consider
this an extremely dangerous issue. Both asked why the
medal had to be presented now, calling it a bad choice
to mark the tenth anniversary of the Dayton Agreement
and a threat to Croatian efforts to end all
glorification of fascism.
FRANK


NNNN