[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 28 (Monday, March 16, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E375-E376]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





                         DEMOCRACY IN CROATIA?

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, March 16, 1998

  Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to share with my colleagues an 
informative newspaper article revealing the unfortunate lack of 
progress towards democratic and human rights in Croatia (documented 
recently in the State Department's Country Report). I also want to 
express my deep sympathy and support for the citizens of this Republic 
who voted for democracy nearly eight years ago. The people of Croatia 
were right in wanting to join other democratic nations by implementing 
democratic reforms that would bring them more freedom and better lives 
for their families. It is unfortunate, that the ruling party and its 
leader, President Tudjman, maintain an authortiarian grip that stifles 
these dreams. One has only to look at Croatia's neighbor, Slovenia, to 
see how different it could have been had Croatia's leaders embraced 
democracy instead of holding on to the past and their personal power at 
the expense of the people of Croatia.
  At this point, I include the text of a bill I recently introduced on 
this matter, H. Res. 375.

                [From the New York Times, Feb. 15, 1998]

          Threats Worry 3 Who Tied Croatian Army to Atrocities

                           (By Chris Hedges)

       Zagreb, Croatia, Feb. 14.--Three former Croatian soldiers 
     who provided testimony and documents detailing the killing of 
     scores of ethnic Serbs and Croats by the Croatian Army say 
     they have been repeatedly beaten by unidentified assailants, 
     their vehicles have been firebombed and they receive almost 
     daily death threats.
       The men, who gave their evidence to the war crimes tribunal 
     at The Hague, say they witnessed scores of abductions and 
     killings in and around the town of Gospic during Croatia's 
     1991 war of independence from Yugoslavia.
       They say that hundreds of ethnic Serbs, as well as Croats 
     who opposed the nationalist movement, were executed and 
     buried in mass graves around Gospic by the Croatian Army, 
     paramilitary groups and the police.
       They also contend that documents they have turned over to 
     The Hague implicate senior Croatian officials, including 
     Defense Minister Gojko Susak, in the killings. The Croatian 
     Government denies that its senior officials were involved in 
     human rights abuses during the war.
       The decision by Milan Levar, 43, the former commander of a 
     reconnaissance intelligence unit; Zdenko Bando, 41, a former 
     military police commander, and Zdenko Ropac, 45, a former 
     secret intelligence police officer, to approach The Hague is 
     one of the very rare cases in which senior officers have 
     volunteered to describe abuses committed by their own 
     soldiers to the tribunal.
       But the men, two of whom have fled their native town of 
     Gospic because of attacks, said in interviews recently that 
     the tribunal took so long to investigate the reports of 
     massacres that local authorities had time to destroy some of 
     the evidence. They also assert that the tribunal has not 
     provided them and their families with promised protection.
       ``We do not understand what is going on,'' said Mr. Levar, 
     who first met with tribunal investigators last August in 
     Gospic, 100 miles south of Zagreb. ``We have been branded 
     traitors. We live under constant pressure. The police chief 
     in Gospic and the local army commander are war criminals. 
     What kind of protection can we expect from these men?''
       Christian Chartier, the spokesman for the tribunal, said in 
     a telephone interview that it was not the tribunal's policy 
     to comment on its investigations. But Mr. Chartier confirmed 
     that investigators had met with the three men and twice 
     offered them ``proposals for protection'' that he said the 
     former soldiers had ``turned down''
       ``We are still discussing this with them,'' he said, 
     refusing to elaborate. ``We are hopeful that a proposal may 
     be accepted.''
       The men say that a few of the mass graves were cleared by 
     the Croatian military shortly before tribunal investigators 
     visited Gospic last summer, but that other sites remain 
     untouched. The men, two of whom went to The Hague in December 
     to meet again with investigators, also said they turned over 
     videotapes showing Croatian forces killing civilians.
       ``I was in a position to see everything that was 
     happening,'' Mr. Bando said. ``The orders to carry out these 
     killings came to us from the Ministry of Defense. Those who 
     committed these crimes were never punished, in fact they were 
     promoted within the military, the police and the political 
     structure. They remain in power. We find this inexcusable.''
       Mr Bando, who is unemployed and facing an unexplained 
     eviction notice from his small apartment in Zagreb, said that 
     in October 1991 local police officials pulled up to his 
     office with a truck piled with bodies, including those of 
     women and children.
       ``Blood was dripping through the floor boards,'' he said. 
     ``These people had just been executed. The driver was looking 
     for a place to bury them.''
       Mr. Levar said he witnessed the deaths of about 50 people. 
     Mr. Ropac said that he knew of 127 ethnic Serbs who were 
     killed in Gospic before he left the town and ``that the 
     figure grew later.''
       The allegations of widespread killings by nationalist 
     Croats around Gospic were bolstered last September when one 
     of the executioners Miro Bajramovic, confessed in The Feral 
     Tribune, an independent weekly, to the murder of 72 
     civilians. Mr. Bajramovic was arrested after the publication 
     of the confession and remains in prison.
       The three former soldiers said that Mr. Bajramovic was 
     being subjected to frequent beatings and intense 
     ``Psychological torture'' by his Croatian jailers.
       Their accusations have been impossible to substantiate, 
     though.
       Gospic, which had some 15,000 inhabitants before the war, 
     is now a forlorn, heavily damaged town with just 3,000 
     people.
       The former soldiers angrily assert that those who carried 
     out the abductions and murders came from ``the scum of the 
     town'' and were primarily interested in looting the homes and 
     property of the Serbs and Croats they killed.
       ``These people killed my town--the town of my father and 
     grandfather,'' Mr. Levar said. ``I doubt it will ever revive. 
     They killed it to get very rich. This dirty money keeps them 
     in power. All we want is for them to pay for their crimes.''


                   2 Bosnian Serbs Surrender to U.N.

       Bosanski Samac, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Feb. 14--(AP).--Two 
     Bosnian, Serbs surrendered today to the United Nations war 
     crimes tribunal, the first Serbian suspects to do so 
     voluntarily.
       Driving their own cars, with officials from the United 
     States Embassy as passengers, the suspects, Milan Silmic and 
     Miroslav Tadic, left for Tuzia, where NATO-led troops will 
     meet them for the journey to the court, in The Hague.
       Indicted on war crimes charges in 1995, the two men say 
     they are innocent.
       They said they believed that conditions had been set for a 
     fair trail.
                                                                    ____


                              H. Res. 375

       Whereas Dobroslav Paraga, who has twice been adopted as a 
     prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, has endured 
     hardship for openly calling on the Government of Croatia to 
     honor its commitments under the Helsinki Accords to respect 
     the fundamental human rights of all the citizens of Croatia;
       Whereas Dobroslav Paraga had been tried on three occasions 
     by the courts of the former Government of Yugoslavia, the 
     initial charge being that, in 1980, he, along with a Jewish 
     Croatian student, Ernest Brajder, authored a petition 
     opposing torture in Yugoslavia and calling for the release of 
     political prisoners;
       Whereas, as a result, both men were arrested and, three 
     days later Ernest Brajder died under what the Department of 
     State calls ``mysterious circumstances'';
       Whereas, in 1986, Mr. Paraga sued the Government of 
     Yugoslavia for injuries, both physical and psychological, 
     inflicted on him by prison authorities during his 
     imprisonment;
       Whereas the regime and court in Zagreg denied him a fair 
     and just trial, an account of which was set forth in the 
     Department of State's annual Country Report on Human Rights 
     Practices for 1987;
       Whereas the Government of Yugoslavia forbade Mr. Paraga in 
     1987 to speak out publicly in any way about his experiences 
     as a political prisoner and the Government of Croatia has 
     continued this prohibition against the fundamental political 
     and human rights of Mr. Paraga;
       Whereas the Government of Croatia persecuted Mr. Paraga for 
     criticizing his country in the United States in 1993 and he 
     was subsequently stripped of his post as Deputy Chairman of 
     the Committee for Human Rights of the Croatian Parliament;
       Whereas in August 1997 the Government of Croatia brought 
     charges against Mr. Paraga within days of his meeting with 
     investigators from the Hague War Crimes Tribunal to which he 
     turned over documentation involving allegations against 
     several high officials of the Government of Croatia;
       Whereas, in violation of this order of silence, Dobroslav 
     Paraga has come to the West to speak out about human rights 
     abuses in Croatia;

[[Page E376]]

       Whereas, upon his return to Croatia, Dobroslav Paraga risks 
     imprisonment again because of his open criticism of the 
     Government of Croatia's human rights abuses; and
       Whereas in 1998 Dobroslav Paraga called on the Government 
     of Croatia to take the following actions: (1) to establish 
     independent television and radio stations in Croatia; (2) to 
     allow full freedom of the media in Croatia; (3) to allow free 
     and fair elections to take place in Croatia; (4) to establish 
     a judiciary and lower court system that is independent from 
     the ruling party or any other party in Croatia; (5) to re-
     establish the independence of the Croatian Party of Rights 
     (CPR) that was illegally disbanded in 1993, including the 
     reinstatement to the Croatian Parliament of the 5 seats of 
     the Croatian Party of Rights; and (6) to end the terror and 
     abuse of justice perpetrated by the Government of Croatia 
     against Dobroslav Paraga and the Croatian Party of Rights: 
     Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That is the sense of the House of Representatives 
     that the Government of Croatia--
       (1) in recognition of the provisions of the Universal 
     Declaration of Human Rights, should guarantee its citizens 
     fundamental human rights and freedoms;
       (2)(A) should establish independent television and radio 
     stations in Croatia;
       (B) should allow full freedom of the media in Croatia;
       (C) should allow free and fair elections to take place in 
     Croatia;
       (D) should establish a judiciary and lower court system 
     that is independent from the ruling party or any other party 
     in Croatia;
       (E) should re-establish the independence of the Croatian 
     Party of Rights (CPR) that was illegally disbanded in 1993, 
     including the reinstatement to the Croatian Parliament of the 
     5 seats of the Croatian Party of Rights; and
       (F) should end the terror and abuse of justice perpetrated 
     by the Government of Croatia against Dobroslav Paraga and the 
     Croatian Party of Rights;
       (3) should dismiss the charges currently pending against 
     human rights activist Dobroslav Paraga and end all forms of 
     harassment against him and his family; and
       (4) should conduct an investigation into the death of 
     Ernest Brajder, who, according to the Department of State, 
     died under ``mysterious circumstances'', and should make its 
     findings public.

     

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