‘The’ Letter, Disappointed Croatians

The letter at the center of the issue lead to the postponement of the European Union (EU) membership negotiations with Croatia.

The letter dated March 4, was obtained by Zaman, and was sent to 25 member countries including the EU Term-President Luxembourg. In the letter, Del Ponte emphasized that the war criminal, retired General Ante Gotovina had purposely not been arrested by Croatia and that their actions attempted to hoodwink the court. Del Ponte also accused the Croatian government of activating Croatian intelligence in order to obstruct the USSM’s investigations and prevent the arrest of Gotovina. At the end of her letter, Del Ponte emphasized again, that only the Croatian government could arrest Gotovina. Del Ponte kept her second letter brief since there had been few developments following her first letter written on February 11. In her first letter, Del Ponte severely criticized the Croatian government over seven issues. The issues are as follows:

Officials had allowed Ante Gotovina to escape in 2001. The sealed indictment of the court was given directly to the General and no efforts were made for his arrest.

Since 1996, the Croatian government has aided many of the individuals sought by the court through various operations and had prevented the court from carrying out its work.

The information given to the government about Gotovina was conveyed to the General within 24 hours, and the strong state network protecting Gotovina, is still goes on.

There is a dual mechanism in the state concerning the people sought by the USSM. For example, Croatia claimed that they did not know the whereabouts of Miroslav Bralo, whom was sought by the court, the Croatian government, and then they announced that Bralo would surrender in Mostar before I issued my report to UN and a few days after the issue was brought to NATO.

We have strong evidence at hand that proves that Gotovina spends the bulk of his time in the region.

The fact that Gotovina still collects his pension confirms that the government has no intention of arresting the General.

The government claims that it has attempted to arrest Gotovina while at the same time declaring him to be a war hero.

In her letter, Del Ponte indicated that if the EU ignores Gotovina’s escape then the surrender of Serbian war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic to the court would be difficult.