ZAGREB WEEKLY ACTIVITY REPORT - APRIL 24, 2009

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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

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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