According to estimates of the organisers of the rally, the Croatian American Association (CAA), about 200 people gathered in Daley Plaza on that occasion.
"This has been a protest rally against the indictment which the Hague-based tribunal issued against Gotovina," Jackie Prkic, the chairwoman of the CAA branch in Chicago and the initiator of the rally, told Hina's Washington correspondent on the phone.
She said that in her speech at the rally she asked the Hague tribunal to drop charges against Gotovina who is according to his command responsibility indicted by the tribunal's Chief Prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, of crimes committed during the 1995 Storm operation. Prkic also called on Del Ponte to cease criminalising the operation.
The participants in the Daley Plaza rally carried Croatian flags and banners with slogans "Gotovina is Innocent!", "Thanks, General!" insisting on non-extradition of Gotovina to The Hague.
Prkic said that "Gotovina was not a criminal but a hero" as Operation Storm, in which Gotovina was a commanding officer, resulted in the liberation of a considerable part of Croatia, helped the Bosnian city of Bihac to avoid the destiny of Srebrenica, and contributed to the completion of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The rally in Chicago was only a partial success of organisers who previously called on American Croats to stage protest rallies in other U.S. cities such as Washington D.C., New York, Los Angeles and Cleveland.
Nobody appeared in front of the headquarters of the United Nations in New York, which a rally was to be held, a reporter of the Croatian Chronicle paper in that city told Hina.
The rally in Cleveland was cancelled.
Nothing happened in front of the Croatian Embassy in Washigton where the CAA also had planned to state a rally.
According to Prkic, instead of a rally in Washington, CAA representatives on Friday went to Congress to lobby in the foreign affairs committees of the House of Representatives and the Senate against the prosecution of the retired General Gotovina.
Prkic explained that due to restricted space, the organisers were not allowed to stage rallies in front of the Croatian consulates but in cities' squares.
The organisers set up the web site www.freegeneralgotovina.com for the collection of signatures to a petition against the Gotovina indictment.
A the end of this month, the petition is to be delivered world leaders as well as to Croatian President Stjepan Mesic and Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, Prkic said.