Veche

If you go down to the woods today you’re sure of a big surprise

February 10th, 2008 by kb

by Ed Alexander

As 2007 drew to a close, a tabloid storm erupted in Zagreb with all of Croatia’s daily papers carrying photos of a group of camouflaged men, guns slung over their shoulders and smiles beaming, standing trium­phantly over an array of dead bod­ies. This was not a flashback to the ‘90s that would implicate high rank­ing officials in the Croatian govern­ment in an act of genocide though, and in fact the bodies were not even human.

The group of men pictured had been out hunting wild boars, a popular past time for many red-blooded Croatian men, and the scandal surrounding it was more precisely directed at who had gone on this hunting trip. Mladen Maka­rac, an indictee of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugo­slavia (I.C.T.Y.) had broken the terms of his provisional release to await trial at home which had been granted in 2004 shortly after his surrender.

This alone would have been embarrassing enough for the Croa­tian government who are trying hard to portray themselves as a respon­sible and cooperative entity, how­ever worse was to come when the photos from the hunt revealed that Makarac was not the only famous face in the now infa­mous photos. When it was noticed that Interior Minister Ivica Kirin was also present, the credibility of Cro­atian politics was dealt a massive blow, leaving a frustrated President Stjepan Mesiic to ask rightly, “Who will believe us now?”

The youngest member of Prime Minister Ivo Sanader’s cabi­net, Kirin was, quite ironically, re­sponsible for ensuring that Makarac fulfilled the conditions of his parole as one of his duties as Interior Min­ister. From his exposure onwards, pressure quickly mounted on the man who had, prior to his job in the Croatian cabinet, been Mayor of the Salavonian town of Virovitica. One more vehement response to his mistake was made by the Croa­tian newspaper 24 Sata, which car­ried a scathing front page the day after the story broke with the head­line “Hand in your resignation! We pay for your mistakes!” along with a smarmy photo of Kirin surrounded by blonde haired beauties and a selec­tion of fatal tragedies that the paper holds him at least partly responsible for. One of these pictures referenced an incident which had particularly enraged the Croatian population, namely his response to the tragedy on the island of Kornati where 12 fire­fighters perished last August. Instead of altering his plans appropriately and joining in the collective mourn­ing, Kirin was found to have stayed out late drinking at the Špancirfest festival in the northern city of Varaz­din.

The scandal, although ini­tially surrounding Mladen Makarac, is likely to have far more wide reach­ing effects. Makarac himself is by no means a celebrity in Croatia and the fact that he will now have to spend the rest of his time prior to trial in the Scheveningen detention centre will bother few Croats. More importantly however, the widespread public anger in Croatia could certainly be galvanized against both the Kirin and the I.C.T.Y., as this recent chain of events means that General Ante Gotovina, a man capable of provok­ing patriotism amongst the masses like nobody else, will almost certainly be refused provisional release.

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