ZAGREB WEEKLY ACTIVITY REPORT - APRIL 24, 2009

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ZAGREB 000213 SENSITIVE SIPDIS FOR EUR/SCE, EUR/PPD, EUR/RPM AND EUR/ERA OSD FOR POPOVICH E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL PGOV HR SUBJECT: ZAGREB WEEKLY ACTIVITY REPORT - APRIL 24, 2009 ¶1. (U) U.S.-CROATIAN OPERATIONAL MENTORING LIAISON TEAM (OMLT) DEPARTS FOR AFGHANISTAN: On April 16, twelve Minnesota National Guard soldiers and 12 Croatian soldiers departed for Afghanistan where they will serve as the first multinational combat support operational mentoring liaison team (OMLT) in ISAF. The team will deploy to Mazar e Sharif where it will train the Afghan National Army to improve its reconnaissance, artillery, and engineering capabilities. The joint Croatian-American unit will be commanded by Croatian Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Galovic. The formation of the team is the culmination of years of close cooperation and joint training between the Minnesota National Guard and the Croatian Armed Forces. A departure ceremony held at the military facility at Zagreb's Pleso airport received positive television and print coverage. (KWetzel) ¶2. (SBU) SERB MAFIA LEADER FACING CHARGES IN PUKANIC KILLING: Several media outlets are reporting that the Prosecutor,s Office for Suppression of Organized Crime and Corruption (USKOK) plans to indict Serbian drug lord Sretan Jocic, aka Joca Amsterdam, for the November car bombing in Zagreb that killed Croatian media-mogul Ivo Pukanic and one of his editors. This is consistent with information provided to poloff by contacts in the police and prosecutor,s office. According to the press, USKOK will also issue an international arrest warrant for Jocic. Since the Serbian Constitution prohibits the extradition of its own citizen, sources told poloff that prosecutors are prepared to turn over evidence in the case to Serbian prosecutors for a trial in Serbia. Croatian and Serbian prosecutors have successfully cooperated previously on cross-border trials for war crimes and other criminal offenses. (CZimmer) ¶3. (U) CROATIA MARKS HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY: A ceremony organized by Croatia's largest Jewish community was held on April 21 in Zagreb's most historic cemetery in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day. Key government officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor, attended as well as a number of representatives from the country's diplomatic corps. Names of some of the youngest victims of the Holocaust in Croatia were read, candles were lit, and floral wreaths were laid at the foot of a statute of Moses in the cemetery. In his address to those assembled, Ognjen Kraus the president of the Zagreb Jewish Municipality and Coordinating Body of Jewish Municipalities in Croatia, said that many in the Croatian Jewish community disapproved of the content of the Jasenovac Memorial Museum. Jasenovac is the site of the largest WWII concentration camp in Croatia, where at least 70,000 Serbs, Jews, and Roma lost their lives under the Nazi puppet Ustasa regime. Kraus said that the displays (NOTE: developed with input from Washington's Holocaust Museum) do not fully convey the horrors and atrocities that took place at the camp. (JNCallahan) ¶4. (U) INDEPENDENT CANDIDATE FOR ZAGREB MAYOR GAINS SUPPORTERS: President of the Croatian Peoples Party (HNS) Radimir Cacic indicated on April 17 the HNS would not field its own candidate for the mayor of Zagreb and would urge its backers to support an independent mayoral candidate, law school dean Josip Kregar. Reportedly, internal HNS polls showed their own candidate had little appeal outside the party's traditional base of 5 to 10 percent of voters. Kregar's campaign expressed gratitude towards Cacic, but denied rumors that he would form a pre-election coalition with the HNS for the city council. While it is looks more likely that Kregar will push incumbent Milan Bandic into a second round runoff in the mayoral race, the left-oriented Kregar campaign faces stiff challenges in the second round, where the main voters that will be up for grabs will be from the nearly 30 percent of the city which typically prefers right of center parties. (DMeges) ¶5. (U) EMBASSY GREEN WEEK SUCCESSFUL: Embassy Zagreb is an innovator in "green" activities, including converting to natural gas vehicles, using paper recycling to fund demining efforts, and replacing incandescent residential lighting with energy-saving CFLs. In honor of Earth Day 2009 and celebrating the anniversary of the Mission's enrollment in the League of Green Embassies, Embassy management organized a six-day "green week" with various activities highlighting the environment and minimizing our use of carbon-based fuel, water and paper. Highlights of the week included a viewing of Oscar-winning "An Inconvenient Truth," a "green" bake sale, a natural light ZAGREB 00000213 002 OF 002 day and a "no-car" day. In addition to planting a symbolic tree on earth day, Embassy family members joined local scouts and environmentalists in a tree-planting day in the Zagreb countryside. (TFavret) BRADTKE