The same author discusses looks at the political background of the war criminals question in Croatia, in the August 25, 1997 issue of this weekly.Knowing the handwriting of the extraditions to the Hague so far, it is quite probable that the accused that will be delivered are the ones who are blamed that they are ?objectively responsible?, which guarantees months and months of ant - like work to prove their guilt, and in that respect, that many months of respite for Tudjman?s Hague Crisis HQ (Grnic, minister Hodak, Separovic...). The classic executioners will be the last to go, and the state head will, without a doubt, attempt to use them as a live stake to salvage the state which he is leading, but himself too, from being shamefully dragged through the Hague trials.
That all this is going round quite close to Tudjman?s head is shown by the fact that it is not sufficient for him anymore to have boring, smirking laments in the regime press about the immorality and bias of the International Tribunal. Now he even wanted to be quicker than the Hague prosecutors, so he is organizing a counter trial against Paraga and Cicak. Its only gol is to prove that he is not guilty for the division of Bosnia, even less for the crimes committed there.
The most that the pressured ruler is ready to admit - this gingerly too - is that he was the instrument of inevitable ?historical forces?. At this, also the instrument used for a long time by the big countries who have taken over the care over Bosnia.
The manner in which all this has come forth in the raising of the indictment against Paraga and Cicak has no precedent. Tudjman did not only place the whole responsibility for the ?disturbance of the public?, but has also received a quiet support of a sizeable part of the opposition.
Actually, the opposition did not do this to suit Tudjman as much as to punish two over ambitious non parliamentarian politicians, who dared open the themes it is not opening and ask the responsibility it does not ask for.
For months, the opposition is not saying anything about the key questions of the country, playing a sleepy meditator, whom even the themes like the division of Bosnia cannot wake up - the theme with which it at one point has shaken the HDZ so much, that it forced him to call the only extraordinary elections so far, in Autumn 1995.
Source: Split weekly ?Feral Tribune?, August 25, 1997
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