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The arrest in the Spanish Canary Islands of Croatian General Ante Gotovina has implications for the entire region. For Croatia, the most important point is that the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) will no longer be a sword hanging over its head. For years, new indictments and unrelenting pressure to “cooperate fully” with the ICTY have significantly helped to keep alive the flames of nationalism. That period is now basically finished. The door is now open, presuming that the EU and the United States live up to their promises, to accelerated access to both the EU and to NATO. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next months, as it is unclear whether either organization will be able to deliver as rapidly as the Croatians will expect.
The capture of Gotovina will also create problems for the HDZ government of Ivo Sanader. There is no question that the information that led to Gotovina’s arrest came from the fruits of cooperation between the Croatian intelligence services and those of interested governments such as the United States and the United Kingdom. This will be seen as treason by right-wing Croatians, including many in Sanader’s party itself. At the same time, it won’t bring him increased support from the Center-left and Left parties in the country. Which means that the HDZ, which was already facing a declining base of support, will see it even further eroded. This will be particularly true if the EU and NATO memberships do not come through quickly.
By concentrating its efforts so intensely on the capture of Gotovina as the “litmus test” for Croatia, the International Community has also by implication downgraded in importance the question of the treatment of Croatian Serbs who fled their homes in the fighting of the last decade and who have not yet been able to return to them. While some limited progress has been made, far too many of their homes are still occupied by Bosnian Croats ten years after the cessation of hostilities. This is in glaring contrast to Bosnia, where the government with the intense support (and pressure) of the International Community, returned homes and apartments to their original owners. Having incurred the wrath of the Right over Gotovina, it is unlikely that the current Croatian government will have any inclination to further aggravate them by moving forcefully on this issue. The unanswered question is how hard the EU will press the Croatian government to return homes to their original owners as a precondition for membership.
For the international community, the discovery of Gotovina in the Canary Islands and revelations about his travels within the EU should cause a major reappraisal of its intelligence sources, which for so long had routinely claimed that Gotovina was residing in either Croatia itself or in nearby Bosnia. Remember Carla Del Ponte’s recent complaint to the Vatican that Gotovina was being shielded in a monastery in Croatia or Bosnia? At the very least, all of these “credible sources” should be asked to repay the large fees paid for their reports. If they were so wrong about Gotovina, what might that mean for theories about the whereabouts of Mladic and Karadzic?
Far more importantly for Bosnia and Serbia and Montenegro, however, is that the International Community’s policy of barring membership in the Euro/Atlantic Institutions until indicted war criminals are apprehended has been, at least in their eyes, fully vindicated. The theory all along has been that if the governments in the Region really use all the resources at their disposal, information will inevitably turn up that will lead to the capture of the indictees. This is exactly what happened in Gotovina’s case and what the International Community will now expect even more from Bosnia and Serbia and Montenegro. For the fact is that all of the remaining fugitives from the ICTY are Serbs or Bosnian Serbs.
The end result will be to increase the pressure on Serbia itself even more. Once again, as in the early 90s, Serbia finds itself isolated and under pressure from an International Community which does not sympathize with its specific concerns or fears. The longer that Mladic and Karadzic remain at large, the stronger the contrast will be between Serbia and other countries in the region.
The dilemma for the International Community is that it is beginning to finally realize that a destabilized, radicalized Serbia is not in its interest or the interest of the region. Furthermore, it is also beginning to grasp that independence for Kosovo might bring that result about. So it is relying heavily on the carrots of membership in the Euro-Atlantic Institutions as the primary way to moderate the Serbian reaction. Meanwhile, both those same carrots have now been firmly locked into the totally different issue of the capture of Mladic and Karadzic. The problem originated because to some extent, there are different interest groups involved, some committed to absolute support for the ICTY and the necessity of the arrest of all its indictees, others determined to bring Kosovo to independence. Without much thought, the same carrots were dangled as incentives for both issues.
The region will now be watching very closely to see if Croatia is indeed rewarded for the capture of Gotovina. If the International Community actually moves quickly to bring Croatia fully into the Euro-Atlantic Institutions, it will greatly increase the credibility of its carrots. Conversely, if the process is a protracted one, the credibility of the incentives will diminish accordingly. The EU should also provide significant financial assistance in the short term to re-settle Bosnian Croats in other locations so that those Croatian Serbs who choose to do so can return to their renovated homes peacefully. If these steps can be taken in the near future, the Serbs will be able to see clearly the benefits of working out compromises and understandings with the International Community. As it is now, the promises of assistance and accelerated membership are all too vague to be treated seriously. Moreover, the International Community will need to be more specific as to exactly what the benefits of cooperation on each issue are and what the penalties for non-compliance are. You can try to sell the same horse twice, but chances are that you won’t get away with it. Moreover, I am not at all sure that on either of these issues, Serbia or the Bosnian Serbs are prepared to cooperate in the way which the International Community wants them to do.
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