ZAGREB, March 9 (Hina) - General Ivan Cermak, who was indicted for war crimes by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, gave an interview to Vecernji List and Jutarnji List dailies, to be published in the dailies' Wednesday issues.
Cermak spoke in the interviews about his role in Knin after the 1995 Operation "Storm" and called for defusing tensions over his and General Mladen Markac's departure for The Hague, stating he believed that the content of the indictments should be discussed before the tribunal and not in Croatian political circles.
ZAGREB, March 9 (Hina) - General Ivan Cermak, who was indicted for war
crimes by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, gave an interview
to Vecernji List and Jutarnji List dailies, to be published in the
dailies' Wednesday issues. Cermak spoke in the interviews about his
role in Knin after the 1995 Operation "Storm" and called for defusing
tensions over his and General Mladen Markac's departure for The Hague,
stating he believed that the content of the indictments should be
discussed before the tribunal and not in Croatian political circles.#L#
"Laws must be respected and the political reality, both in the country
and the international community, must be taken into account," Cermak
said in the interview with Jutarnji List.
The political fight must be fought within the framework of the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and
the Constitutional Law on Cooperation with the ICTY, Cermak said. "We
are responding to the tribunal's summons voluntarily and by doing so,
we are sending a message to others. Everybody should calm down and not
raise tensions. Nobody is allowed to score political points on us,"
Cermak said.
There was no orchestrated ethnic cleansing campaign and genocide in
Croatia as alleged by the indictment, there were individual crimes
which the Croatian police and the UN police investigated, which can be
proven before the ICTY, Cermak said.
"It's a pity that those cases were not forwarded to the judiciary for
prosecution," Cermak said.
After Operation "Storm" Cermak was appointed commander of the Knin
garrison. He said that the fact that the late President Franjo Tudjman
appointed a man with the rank of a general to this post was due to
"the situation being delicate".
In the interview with Vecernji List, Cermak said that he had no
written order but only a verbal order from President Tudjman to carry
out his tasks as the commander of the Knin garrison. As an experienced
logistician, he assisted civil authorities but did not interfere in
their activities.
Assistance referred to the re-establishment of power and water supply,
sanitation, and putting the local hospital in operation, he said.
The Croatian army was the only organised structure in the area after
Operation Storm, Cermak said adding that this was why he was also in
charge of some civil affairs.
Asked to comment on allegations from the indictment that he, as
Markac, was superior to both the military and civil authorities,
Cermak said this was nonsense and that the civil police had its own
structure.
He said that he had reported about all developments in his area of
responsibility to his superiors, including the Office of the
President, and that he had talked about them in public.
"Crimes did happen indisputably in some remote villages, and they were
sporadic and not part of an orchestrated ethnic cleansing campaign,"
Cermak said.
The crimes were investigated and had they been processed, this
situation would not have happened, Cermak said.
He presented data on 36 killings and one case of rape in the Knin area
after Operation Storm. The police discovered the perpetrators of 21
killings and forwarded their findings to competent bodies, Cermak
said.
"As regards the average efficiency in discovering the perpetrators, it
is visible that the police had better results in those post-war times
than the police in New York, London or Zagreb," he said adding that he
had kept nothing secret from international associations and bodies, to
which he was bound by the Sarinic-Akashi agreement.
Asked how he then ended up indicted, Cermak said he did not know and
that he had hoped that ICTY investigators, to whom he explained his
role in Knin, "would stick to facts and not to media fabrications and
public perceptions".
ICTY investigators were interested in logistics and orders referring
to contacts with the international community, he added in the
interview with Vecernji List.
Cermak said he did not know if somebody had incriminated him to clear
themselves from suspicion during the investigation.
He said that the possibility of a plea-bargain had not been mentioned
in any of his three interviews with ICTY investigators that were
conducted in Zagreb. "I made it clear to them that we can only talk
about me and my role in Knin and nothing else," he said.
Stressing that he believed in the fairness of the Hague tribunal,
Cermak said: "I deeply believe that justice must win and that is why I
am leaving for The Hague of my own accord. I do not want to cause any
problems for my country, especially now that cooperation with the
tribunal is one of conditions for Croatia's integration into European
institutions".
Asked how the government was treating his and Markac's case, Cermak
said the government was acting fairly and had cooperated with them and
stuck to all agreements from the beginning. "We have agreed with the
government and guaranteed that we will leave for The Hague on Thursday
and surrender to the tribunal".
Cermak confirmed to Vecernji List that President Stjepan Mesic, who
visited Knin after its liberation, was a possible defence witness in
his case.
(Hina) rml