ZAGREB WEEKLY ACTIVITY REPORT - JANUARY 16, 2008

UNCLAS ZAGREB 000029 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS FOR EUR/SCE, EUR/PPD, EUR/RPM AND EUR/ERA OSD FOR WINTERNITZ E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL ECON PGOV ICTY EUC HR SUBJECT: ZAGREB WEEKLY ACTIVITY REPORT - JANUARY 16, 2008 ¶1. (SBU) US CONTINUES ENGAGEMENT ON ICTY LEGACY, WAR CRIMES ISSUES: S/WCI and SCE visitors traveled to Croatia on January 13-14 to examine ICTY legacy issues in the region and regional cooperation on war crimes. Along with Poloff, the visitors met in Osijek and Vukovar with county court judges and with a local NGO involved in war crimes monitoring. Court officials praised Post's now-completed War Crimes project, which provided training to judges on war crimes adjudications. They expressed the need for similar programming/communication with the ICTY in order to ensure a smooth transition upon the ICTY's closure. Regarding ICTY's closure and the process for Category II evidence transfer, they indicated that many outstanding issues remain. Leading NGO Center for Peace also called on the ICTY to assist in case transition, particularly in reaching out to witnesses, and called on judges and prosecutors to be more activist in their approach to witness support. They cited the Ademi-Norac 11 bis transfer and the Glavas cases as high-profile examples. They were satisfied that OSCE will remain to continue war crimes monitoring, noting that it has outstanding expertise that will need to be transferred to local institutions before its final departure. Judges in Osijek and Vukovar believe they do have the capacity to try crimes domestically, and that effective regional cooperation is due in large part to the relationships that have been established between judges and prosecutors in the region. Judges cited their joint efforts with Serbian counterparts on such cases as Lovas (indictments against many individuals both in Serbia and Croatia for civilian murders near Vukovar) and Miroslav Radic (one of the ICTY "Vukovar Three" defendants now facing an indictment in Croatia). (KSelinger) ¶2. (U) EC TEMPORARILY BLOCKS CROATIA PRE-ACCESSION FUNDS: Citing weak administrative capacity and dissatisfied with the GOC,s failure to prepare new tenders for pre-accession funds during the last quarter of 2007, the European Commission has temporarily frozen the signing of new contracts for EU-funded projects in Croatia. The move, although dramatic, is largely symbolic, as there are currently no contracts pending signature, due to the fact that there have been no project tenders for the last few months. This has not prevented opposition politicians and the press from seizing the issue, citing it as another indication of the failure of PM Sanader,s government to manage Croatia,s relations with Brussels and suggesting that Croatia could be at risk of losing EU money entirely. The Commission has told the GOC it will consider lifting the freeze at the end of February if problems are rectificed and capacity bolstered. If this is done, the disbursement of pre-accession funds would resume and it is unlikely that Croatia would lose any of the estimated 140 million euros it is set to receive in 2008. (NBerliner) BRADTKE