War Crimes Suspects Cause Collateral Damage

The U.N. war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia issued its final indictment last week — for ex-Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski and his bodyguard Johan Tarculovski on charges of murder, wanton destruction and cruel treatment — but its previous warrants are still causing ructions in the Balkans. Croatia hoped to start European Union accession talks this month, but the deal was postponed after the Hague tribunal's chief prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, argued that former Croatian general Ante Gotovina is "within the reach of the Croatian authorities" but has still not been turned in almost four years after he was indicted. Serbia and Bosnia aren't even candidates for accession, in large part because Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his top general, Ratko Mladic, have been indicted and at large since July 1995.

E.U. foreign ministers said Croatia's accession talks would start once it was established that Zagreb "is cooperating fully" in finding Gotovina. "We have to convince our friends in the E.U. that we are doing everything we can to find out where the fugitive general is," Croatian President Stjepan Mesic told TIME. "The only thing I care about is how to start the talks as soon as possible."

That may not be what Mesic's countrymen care most about, though. Two years ago, two-thirds of Croatians supported joining the E.U.; less than half do so today, according to polls. Brussels' decision to wait put the center-right government of Prime Minister Ivo Sanader in a tight spot. Zagreb has overhauled hundreds of laws to prepare for E.U. entry, and has surrendered eight indicted war criminals to the tribunal, braving the protests of many Croatians who deny that Croatian forces committed any crimes during the 1991-95 war against Serbia. Gotovina led the August 1995 Croatian offensive that crushed ethnic Serb rebels, ending four years of war. Del Ponte's indictment charges him with individual criminal responsibility, as commander, for the unlawful killing by Croatian troops of at least 150 Serbs, and the forced expulsion of at least 150,000 others. But to many in Croatia he's a national hero. Damir Grubisa, a columnist for the Novi List daily, fears that Brussels' ultimatum could do more to push Croatia still further away from the E.U. "Extremist nationalism is on the rise. The E.U. decision created a lot of collateral damage here," he says