ZAGREB, Nov 29 (Hina) - A spokeswoman for the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Prosecution on Wednesday rejected accusations that the work of this court assumed political dimensions.
ZAGREB, Nov 29 (Hina) - A spokeswoman for the International
Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Prosecution on
Wednesday rejected accusations that the work of this court assumed
political dimensions.#L#
The Prosecution is investigating all major crimes, and expects from
Croatia to continue cooperating with us, spokeswoman Florence
Hartmann said.
"Every major war crime will be probed. I do not see politicising in
it," Hartmann told Hina on the phone from the Hague when she was
requested to comment on remarks Croatia's First Deputy Prime
Minister, Goran Granic, gave in his interview to a Croatian weekly,
asserting that the work of the ICTY Prosecution was politicised.
Granic viewed that it was a political manipulation that the
Tribunal's Prosecution was planning to issue indictments for
crimes committed in Croatia's liberation operations in 1995 while
it still failed to process crimes from the beginning of the war
(1991) when 15,000 people on the Croatian side lost their lives.
"The Hague Tribunal must consistently take into account everything
what has happened in the Region, observe the war as a whole and start
processing individual responsibilities for war crimes since 1991,
regardless of the ethnicity (of perpetrators)," Garnic told the
latest issue of the "Globus" weekly.
"If the Hague Tribunal does not show such approach, one cannot but
conclude that there is a political approach to these areas," the
Croatian official added.
Spokeswoman Hartmann, who has not yet read Granic's interview,
responded that "this court's duty is to process war crimes
committed in the region of former Yugoslavia since January 1, 1991.
The Tribunal does not work against any (ethnic) group," she
stressed.
She added that the prosecution was investigating a series of crimes
including those in the 1995 Croatian liberation operation "Storm"
and was working on the enlargement of an indictment against ex-
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, so that the expansion would
cover his liability for crimes in Croatia.
"It is necessary that Croatia as well as other countries cooperate.
We shall insist on Belgrade to cooperate also," Hartmann told
Hina.
Making her rhetoric harsher toward Croatia, ICTY Chief Prosecutor
Carla del Ponte, said in her speech she delivered before the UN
Security Council last week that "it is very sad that the improvement
in co-operation in most all other areas can be completely
undermined by obstruction on a few key issues."
According to the text of her speech, which the ICTY released in the
end of last week, she admitted that the cooperation between Zagreb
and the ICTY had indeed seen an improvement in relations when
compared with the previous policy adopted by former Croatian
authorities. Del Ponte, however, claimed that "where Croatia
perceives co-operation to be against its political or narrow
security interests, a real difficulty still exists," and she cited
the example of the Kordic-Cerkez case while prosecutors were trying
to obtain additional documents from Croatia in the final stage of
this trial.
"And in relation to the 1995 Croatian campaign against Serbs in
Croatia, known as Operation Storm, we still face a stubborn refusal
to allow access to witnesses and documents that are essential for
the completion of our investigations. Our work has been seriously
delayed as a result," she said in her speech.
"In addition, in recent times there have been some worrying signs
that Croatia's co-operation is starting to take on some negative
aspects, which is being demonstrated by the government leaking
details of my requests to the media, with a negative media campaign
against the Tribunal accompanying such leaks. This is a very
disappointing development, and cannot be allowed to continue," she
complained.
Croatian First Deputy Premier Granic said in his interview that his
country was not going to meet the Prosecution's requests in the form
they were set, at the cost of facing sanctions.
"No way, cost what it may," Granic said resolutely.
"We advocate the full cooperation, but the term of cooperation
encompasses agreement and dialogue rather than dictates on which
the Prosecution insists. We are willing to cooperate with the
Tribunal according to very clear rules and clear objectives. We
shall oppose any idea which will politicises the situation or take
things from the contexts, what can completely blur the perception
of all events in the region," he told Globus.
"The Croatian Government has set clear criteria which the Hague
Prosecution must take into account if it wants us to fulfil its
requests. Only in such a way, we shall fulfil only the requests that
are in line with those criteria. We shall produce documents both on
the 'Flash' and 'Storm' and about all crimes," Granic said.
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