SPLIT, Aug 16 (Hina) - Croatia's First Deputy Prime Minister Goran Granic said in an interview in Thursday's issue of Slobodna Dalmacija daily politics was being transferred to the streets, which created a bad image of Croatia at a
moment when the opinion of the international community about the country was very important for its future. Our entire political scene and our differences have been transferred to the streets where we have abused everything, including the tradition, which is proved by the case of Sinj's Alka tournament, Granic said. We believe that the opinion of the international community about us is much more important than we think about ourselves, Granic said, adding this year alone he met Carla del Ponte six times, of which only two meetings were public. A lot of things had to be cleared up because there are serious doubts about Croatia's intention to face the dark side of the Homeland War, the more so a
SPLIT, Aug 16 (Hina) - Croatia's First Deputy Prime Minister Goran
Granic said in an interview in Thursday's issue of Slobodna
Dalmacija daily politics was being transferred to the streets,
which created a bad image of Croatia at a moment when the opinion of
the international community about the country was very important
for its future.
Our entire political scene and our differences have been
transferred to the streets where we have abused everything,
including the tradition, which is proved by the case of Sinj's Alka
tournament, Granic said. We believe that the opinion of the
international community about us is much more important than we
think about ourselves, Granic said, adding this year alone he met
Carla del Ponte six times, of which only two meetings were public.
A lot of things had to be cleared up because there are serious doubts
about Croatia's intention to face the dark side of the Homeland War,
the more so as before the change of the authority Croatia had only
tried war crimes committed by Serbs, in line with the then
prevailing theory that Croats could not commit crimes in what was a
defence war, he said.
In our cooperation with the Hague tribunal, we are sometimes on the
same and sometimes on different sides, he added.
Even today I would sign all actions from Operations Storm and Medak
Pocket which needed to be carried out, but the main problem arises
from what was done after those operations. It is, of course,
possible to say 'no' to the Tribunal, but one has to consider the
consequences. This is Croatia's international obligation and the
government has no right to judge it. There is no international
institution, including the Security Council, which can change a
decision of the Hague tribunal. Only that tribunal can change it,
which means that our 'no' would block all activities on our way to
the European Union and probably expose us to sanctions and this or
some other government would be forced to say 'yes' in the end
anyway, Granic said.
Granic does not believe Croatia is facing a major crisis because, he
says, democratic societies are always facing tensions because they
are the battlefield of different interests.
(hina) rml