LARGE CROATIAN SERB GATHERING GOES SMOOTHLY, UNTIL

C O N F I D E N T I A L ZAGREB 000413

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/SCE, EUR/PPD; NSC FOR BRAUN; OSD FOR
POPOVICH

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/01/2018
TAGS: PREL PGOV HR SR BK
SUBJECT: LARGE CROATIAN SERB GATHERING GOES SMOOTHLY, UNTIL
VISITING RS PM DODIK OPENS HIS MOUTH

REF: ZAGREB 404

Classified By: Rick Holtzapple, POL/ECON, Reasons 1.4 b/d.


1. (U) On May 30, the Serbian National Council (SNV) of
Croatia convened the largest political gathering of Serbs in
Croatia since independence, assembling some 1800 delegates
from Serb minority councils across Croatia in Zagreb's main
concert hall. The objective of the assembly, according to
conference organizer and SNV President Milorad Pupovac, and
as reflected in a statement adopted at the session, was to
establish the SNV as a more effective political voice for the
Croatian Serb community, and to bring an end to what Pupovac
described as the "ghettoization" of Serbs within Croatia.
The Assembly's statement detailed a familiar list of
important concerns for Croatia's Serbs, including voting
rights, housing accommodation, employment levels in public
administration, and an end to poorly documented war crimes
prosecutions.


2. (U) Croatian President Stipe Mesic received a warm welcome
for his speech affirming that every Croatian citizen's rights
should be protected, and that among those rights is the right
to express and maintain one's ethnic identity. In comments
clearly, although only implicitly, directed at the on-going
tug of war over forming a government in Belgrade, Mesic
insisted that integration into the EU should be a top
priority for every government in the region, as it was
through European unification that the ethnic battles of the
past could be overcome. PM Sanader's government was
represented by FM Goran Jandrokovic who, although less warmly
received than Mesic, was given polite applause for his speech
detailing steps the HDZ-led government had taken to realize
Croatian Serbs' rights, including appointment of a Croatian
Serb politician as Deputy Prime Minister, increasing
provision of housing to returning Serb refugees, and
progressive implementation of the Constitutional Law on
National Minorities.


3. (SBU) Pupovac, however, had invited other guests to the
event as well. Serbian President Tadic declined to attend at
the last minute, after Serbian FM Jeremic and Croatian FM
Jandrokovic's exchange of words a few days earlier during the
Adriatic-Ionian Initiative meeting (REFTEL). Republika
Srpska PM Milan Dodik did attend, and delivered a somewhat
dyspeptic talk, commenting ironically that if Croatians
thought multiethnic integration was such a great idea, then
why had they fought so hard to dismantle Yugoslavia, adding
that Serbs had been victims of the war throughout the former
Yugoslavia, and saying that any Croatian Serb who felt
disadvantaged in Croatia would be welcome in the RS. His
off-stage comments to the press that Croatia had carried out
the largest ethnic cleansing in Europe since WWII and that
thousands of displaced Serbs ought to be suing Croatia,
rather than Croatia suing Serbia at the International Court
of Justice, drew the most heated response, however, and set
off a renewed round of rhetoric just as the
Jeremic-Jandrokovic exchange was dying down. Croatian
politicians from Mesic and Sanader on down have replied that
Dodik should recall that Serbia under Milosevic began the war
in the 1990's, and that it would be better to invite Croats
and Muslims displaced from the RS during the war to return,
than to offer protection to Croatia's Serbs.


4. (C) COMMENT: As Croatia's Assistant Foreign Minister Pjer
Simunovic observed to POLOFF and visiting Ambassador for War
Crimes Williamson on June 2, the continuing political tension
in Serbia is not only straining bilateral relations between
Serbia and countries such as Croatia which have recognized
Kosovo. It is also straining any regional cooperation within
the multilateral context, with even technical discussions
risking a descent into polemics. In that regard, any attempt
to regionalize or internationalize the status of Croatia's
Serbs is likely to be counter-productive, overshadowing any
discussion of Croatian Serbs' concerns about housing or
employment with largely irrelevant arguments about Kosovo or
genocide. Pupovac yearns for recognition as a regional
Serbian leader, and has some useful lessons to share with
leaders of Serb communities in neighboring states, but he at
times risks sacrificing his domestic constituents' interests
in exchange for international prominence. While he now
laments that Croatian Serbs have had to get used to "larger
political arguments breaking out over our heads," he brought
at least this latest round of suffering on himself by having
invited Tadic and Dodik to the event in the first place. END
COMMENT.
Bradtke